Books for bird watching and about birds

This page will provide you with sources for the many books that deal with birds and bird watching. The books on this page are not necessarily field guides for identification. They are books that will teach you about the birds and how they live. Some are rather technical and some are written for popular consumption.

This will take you to the home page of the On Line Nature Mall which is a fabulous site for any birder. In this case, I am strongly recommending a book called "The Birder's Handbook". It is written by Paul Erlich (remember "The Population Bomb"?) and is the most amazing collection of bird facts I have ever seen. It is strictly a reference book and is not really intended for the field. It is an ornithology class in one place on your book shelf.
This is a great place to shop for serious birders. It is also an outlet for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I highly recommend this one!
I put up two bird feeders and built a small pond in my backyard. That, combined with the tree that was already there, gave me a wonderful year of watching birds from my kitchen table. I did not get a great variety of species, but I did get a fair number of birds which became "regulars" in my yard. It was great fun and I had the opportunity to learn a good deal about the dynamics of those species. I recommend a few books here to get you started. It isn't rocket science, but it does take a little bit of bird knowledge to attract the greatest number of birds and to attract species that will "work well" with feeders.
I cannot overstate the case for learning about bird behavior. What you see out there is a entire suite of adaptive behavior which has developed to make each species successful. You can see a remarkable expression of evolutionary refinement in the territorial defense of a Red-winged Blackbird or a Phainopepla. But, as complex and exciting as the displays are, you will be even more amazed and entertained by the knowledge of the way in which those behaviors serve to communicate information to other birds. A little bit of reading can greatly expand the enjoyment of your birding time.