List of Area Birdfinding Publications
This list of publications is provided as a service to birders. Many of these publications are excellent. I urge you to support the birding press.
It is an excellent resource.Note: The FNYSBC and NYS DEC are currently working on the Breeding Bird Atlas 2000 project. Please consider participating in this wonderful project. Visit the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs,Inc.(FNYSBC) site for more details.
Although very much outdated, this is still the only printed book covering all of NYS. This website supercedes much of the data contained in that book, especially in WNY.
Commentary
Many involved with the book gave it rave reviews. Who would expect otherwise? In my opinion, this book is inadequate! Despite some issues with the original, plus being very outdated, the original is in many ways better than this updated book. (Although out of print, it might be found in used book shops.) If given a choice between the two, I would easily pick the original, as it is more complete and accurate. Even with both books on your shelf, the entire picture of the birdlife within the state is not complete, nor accurate.
Each species account was written by a different author. The quality and style of each author varies (this is not the fault of the editor). Some accounts are simply wonderful; some are dreadfully poor. Was the intent to capture just the changes since Bull's original? Or, was the intent to summarize the species in one concise resource? Each author's answer that question differently. Thus, in some cases, you will get a complete picture of a species in NYS. In others, you only get information pertaining to the last 22 years or so. The sources of information available to each author varied. Or quite possibly, some authors were more diligent than others. Much of the data is inaccurate, or worse, vastly incomplete. Some authors summarized all data available, while other's only summarized what was approved by the state's records committee (NYSARC). Nothing is uniform. For example, hawk tallies from HMANA were not searched in all instances and many accounts lack accurate counts. Many individual accounts are skewed to a particular Kingbird region that is the home of the author. Thus, the account of the species on a whole of the state suffers. In many cases, the The Kingbird (the quarterly journal of the FNYSBC and first reference that should have been searched) was apparently not even searched. For example, a major article appeared on the large numbers of Red-necked Grebes on Lake Ontario. That species account does not mention the article, nor are the maximums in that account correct (the inland maximum is from the author's home region). The publication date of 1998 is important as it is the 50th anniversary of the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs. This book had a predetermined deadline so that the book would be available for the 50th anniversary meeting. With deadline pressures, many individual accounts, and hence the entire book, suffered. This is immediately visible. For a glowing review, and some errata, visit the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs,Inc.(FNYSBC) site.
An exceptional book!!!!! A 79 page introduction includes 8 pages of previous references and 34 pages of birding site descriptions.
This page was last updated on 12 March 2003.
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