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 518 non-incidental birds in California, 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, 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
Journaling space
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.
sighting maps
Get a general idea of where every bird in California 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. For SF Bay residents, we also have a special Bay Area Edition that has an extra map of the Bay Area. 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 😉
Taxonomic organization
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 California! 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 ↓
Common and scientific name indexes
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 This can make birding difficult, as references can become outdated.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!
Conservation status
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.
extra pages
Birding is unpredictable, and that’s part of why it’s so fun! To account for birds that are migrating, lost, escaped pets – whatever it may be, we added extra pages to allow for those nonconventional bird sightings. Each entry has all the same spots for notetaking as our normal entries, as well as an empty sighting map that you can mark up all you want. Sometimes the most interesting birds are the ones we don’t expect and cannot predict!