Birds of Chicago: Including NE Illinois and NW Indiana

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Lone Pine Publishing is developing an impressive list of natural-history
guidebooks, among them a growing number of bird guides. Both books under
review use the same format. Each page is devoted to a single species. A
large drawing of the bird is accompanied by text describing identifying
marks, behaviors, and sounds. There is considerable overlap in the
species of these two areas. While some of the same drawings appear in
both books, the descriptions have been written with the specific
geographic area in mind.

Birds of Alberta should be used in tandem with a bird guide that uses
photographs instead of drawings. Drawings of birds sometimes
overemphasize important field markings, to the point where the image
doesn’t look like the bird viewed in the field. Most serious birders
keep both kinds of guides for cross-referencing, as well as more
comprehensive guides such as the Audubon series or the Roger Tory
Peterson field guides.

Birds of Chicago includes abundance charts that show how often one can
expect to see each species at a given time of year. In lieu of these
charts, Birds of Alberta contains a reference chart of thumbnail images
that facilitates comparisons. Birds of Chicago lacks this feature.

Both volumes are recommended for the novice to average bird watcher,
and for public libraries, in the regions covered.