It seems that every couple of months a new bird ID book or field guide is published. I know because I have an entire library shelf full of them. Each new guide is better than the last one. But if you think about it, despite all the new bird books, we don’t have any new birds. The birds around today are the same ones that were around centuries ago. So why so many new books? An old bird book contains the same birds as the new books.
That is why I was excited to come across a web site that has access to over 12,000 free bird books, some of which were published over 150 years ago. It contains books written by some of the most famous historical names in ornithology. What a treasure trove. The books are in various formats including pdf format for reading on your PC of iPad. And there aresome audio versions (unfortunately, they are read by a machine that just reads the words without phrasing, emphasis or emotion.
Check out this website:
The site has about 1 million books on all topics. And it is easy to sort by subject. It is fun. Enter “birds” in the Search box and you are shown 12,000 bird books that are further divided in sub-categories.
Play around with it. For example, I clicked a book titled “Key to N. Am. Birds” written by Elliott Coues and published in 1872. Then I leafed thru the book, page by page.
Try it. Play around for yourself.
birdsoup 
Leave a Reply