Birds are an endless source of fascination for humans. The rich variety of their shapes, colors, songs, and behavior provides both artistic and scientific inspiration; their annual migrations help us mark the change of seasons; and changes in the distributions of avian species are used as indicators of environmental health. This article highlights selected Internet sites that provide information about birds. (For more on migratory birds, see the article by Stanley A. Temple on page 6 of this issue.)
The Patuxent Wildlife Research Center's Tools for Learning about Birds at http://www.mbr.nbs.gov/bbs/ident.html is a good place to start. This site provides ready access to a large collection of photographs of North American birds, along with recordings of their songs and other identification tips. One can also obtain location-specific seasonal counts and related information from a series of maps at http://www.mbr.nbs.gov/checklist.html. Simply click on the area of interest for a particular season and you will receive a list of average species counts for that part of North America. Each species name is linked to a basic fact sheet that includes a photograph, identification tips, a brief life history, and maps showing the species' distribution during both the breeding season and the winter. More comprehensive data and analysis from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (covering the period from 1966 to 1996) and the Audubon Christmas Bird Count Analysis (covering the period from 1959 to 1988) is available at http://www.mbr. nbs.gov/. Information about several other North American bird monitoring programs can be found at http://www.im.nbs.gov/birds.html.
Many other sites provide pictures and descriptive information for selected species. The scope of these efforts varies widely, however. Examples include the student-produced Animal Diversity Web at http://www.oit.itd.umich.edu/bio108/Chordata/Aves.shtml; regionally focused slide shows such as the Florida Museum of Natural History's Photo Gallery of Southeastern U.S. Birds at http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/ornithology/sephotos/birdpint.htm; selected images from prominent naturalist archives such as Fuertes Bird Images at http://oitnext.cit.cornell.edu/library-images/fuertes-birds.html; and commerically produced guides such as the Bird On! Bird Book at http://birdcare.com/birdon/birdbook/. Some sites, such as Wings on the Web at http://www.applink.net/cpollard/bindex.htm, attempt to construct "virtual libraries" of bird photographs by linking photographs from separate sites. Sites of this type are a valuable complement to commercial publications such as the National Audubon Society's field guides (http://www.randomhouse.com/audubon/), Peterson's guides (http://www.petersononline.com), and Birds of North America (http://www.acnatsci.org/bna/).
More detailed scientific information can be found at research-oriented web sites such as the National Museum of Natural History's Division of Birds site at http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/birds/birds.html, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology site at http://birds.cornell.edu/, the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology's Bird Division site at http://www.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/birds/BIRDWEB.html, and the Center for Avian Biology at the University of California at Davis site at http://avian.ucdavis.edu/clients/avian/default.html.
On the policy front, numerous treaties, laws, and regulations have been enacted to protect migratory bird species and their habitats. A good overview of the U.S. legal framework may be found at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's site at http://www.fws.gov/~r9mbmo/intrnltr/tblcont.html.
Many professional and advocacy organizations also focus on bird conservation. The Ornithological Council is an umbrella organization formed by seven North American ornithological groups. Its BIRDNET web site at http://www.nmnh.si. edu/BIRDNET/has features of interest to practicing ornithologists, such as a newsletter, job openings, and conference announcements. The Audubon Society (http://www.audubon.org/) and Birdlife International (http://www.surfnet.fi/birdlife/int/index.html) are more advocacy oriented. They provide information on conservation and public education campaigns as well as links to local chapters. For the last three years, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph and Birdlife International have jointly sponsored the annual World Bird Count. The results of these surveys are available at http://www.wnn.or.jp/wnn-n/w-bird/english/top.html.
The popularity of birding has given rise to a number of electronic magazines primarily targeted to amateurs. Examples include The Virtual Birder at http://www.virtualbirder.com/vbirder/; InterBirdNet Magazine and Birding Information Service at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/gf09/; and Birdwatching Dot Com at http://www.birdwatching.com.
Sites oriented toward students from kindergarten through high school are listed at http://www.fws.gov/~r9mbmo/edulinks.html. For example, the National Consortium for Environmental Education and Training provides access to Birds: Our Environmental Indicators - a complete junior high level lesson plan - at http://www.nceet.snre.umich.edu/Curriculum/toc.html.
As a group, birders are highly prolific producers of web sites. Several sites provide comprehensive listings of bird-related sites on the Internet. Good examples include the Ornithological Web Library (http://www.bright.net/~vfazio/the-owl.htm), Birding on the Web (http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~siler/birding.html), Birding (http://www.birder.com/birding/index.html), Bird Links (http://wwwis.cs.utwente.nl:8080/deby/Birds/birdlink.html), BirdBase (http://home.sol.no/~tibjonn/index. htm), Bird Links to the World (http://www.ntic.qc.ca/~nellus/links.html), and Electronic Resources on Ornithology (http://www. chebucto.ns.ca/Environment/NHR/bird.html).
THOMAS M. PARRIS is the environmental resources librarian at Harvard College Library. Material to be considered for Bytes of Note should be directed to him at Lamont Level 1, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 or electronically to tparris@fas.harvard.edu.
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