A beautiful birding companion book that helps you catalogue and learn about the birds you see around you. Keep track of your sightings while recording fond memories, and try to see every bird!
This life list contains all 425 non-incidental birds in Arizona, as well as extra spots for any birds we don’t know about. Entries are split taxonomically, with both common and scientific names given for each bird and each taxon. Also included is information about conservation status, seasonality, and a map that shows where each bird is most likely to be found. Write directly in the book to keep track of which birds you’ve seen on your adventures!
Features
Each species has a designated area for sighting notes, so you can keep track of any interesting observations you see in the field. There are also spaces designated to date and location to document your first sighting of each bird species.
Get a general idea of where every bird in Arizona is located using the included sighting maps. Maps are made using two years of recent sighting data, and are provided for each species. This will give you an idea of where other birders and researchers are seeing your target bird. We also included little bar graphs showing the seasonality of each bird, to help you know if you’re looking for your bird in the right time of year. Also feel free to mark up this map to document your sightings! Just don’t forget to also post on eBird so I can include your data in future books 😉
Our books are organized taxonomically, meaning birds are grouped together by their shared characteristics and evolutionary relationships. Each chapter represents a bird order, so once you’ve completed a chapter you’ve seen all birds of this order in Arizona! We hope that by organizing our books in this manner we will not only make it easier for experienced birders to locate their bird of interest, but also help new birders learn a bit of taxonomy. Knowledge of taxonomy is not at all needed to use this book, though, as there are ↓
Sometimes common bird names change. Sometimes bird species get split or combined. This can make birding difficult, as references can become outdated. We did our best to cover our bases by providing both a common name index and a scientific name index, the latter being sorted alphabetically by genus. Hopefully this will help you more easily find the bird you’re looking for!
Birding as a hobby is inextricably tied to conservation. We added the current conservation status of each bird species to educate a bit on this topic. If you see that your favorite bird is threatened, consider looking into how and why, and if you have the means, help out your avian friends! That way, future birders can see them too.
