A Bird-Finding Guide to Ontario

Pleasance Crawford is a Canadian landscape and garden-history researcher
and writer and the co-author of Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian
Garden Writing.

Clive Goodwin, now a freelance naturalist, was Ontario regional editor of American Birds for 17 years, and director of Toronto’s Civic Garden Centre for four. He is becoming well known to the Toronto area’s growing number of bird watchers: for A Bird-Finding Guide to the Toronto Region (Toronto: Toronto Field Naturalists, 1979); and for the Seneca College and Civic Garden Centre courses and field trips he conducts, often in collaboration with his wife Joy, to share with beginning birders the hobby’s intricacies and rewards.

A Bird-Finding Guide to Ontario tells “where the birds are and how to get there,” just as the front cover promises. It is not intended as a field guide; and aside from its cover photograph of an Evening Grosbeak, by Donald Gunn, the only illustrations are black-line maps: six corresponding to the six major geographical regions into which Goodwin divides Ontario, and six detailing access routes to and within specific birding areas.

An introductory chapter, which presents the plan of the book and explains how to use it, and Chapter 2, which surveys Ontario habitat types, birds commonly found in them, and seasonal changes, provide the birder/reader with information necessary for efficient use of the next six chapters. These focus on: Southwestern Ontario and the Niagara Peninsula; South-Central Ontario; Eastern Ontario; Central Ontario; Northern Ontario; and Rainy River and Lake of the Woods. Organization within each chapter is by municipalities, listed alphabetically, within which good birding spots occur. Municipalities are numbered to correspond to numbers on each region’s map, and carefully written directions to each birding spot are provided. Those spots which are most productive are so identified and are described in detail, with mention made of habitats and birds therein to make a special trip worthwhile. Users familiar with the tried-and-true format of A Naturalist’s Guide to Ontario (Judd and Speirs, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964) will recognize this improved version.

Ontario, with 417 bird species (276 of them nesting) and environments ranging from Carolinian forest and prairie remnants in the south to tundra coastline in the north, attracts out-of-province birders. Chapter 9, “For the Visitor,” provides concise information on transportation, accommodation, “finding like minds,” and “books that will help.”

Systematic lists, compiled from records of numerous observers over the last 35 years, comprise Chapter 10. Species sighted in Ontario are grouped by family and rated (abundant, common, fairly common, uncommon, rare, occasional, and exceptional) for each of the four seasons, both for the north and for the south. An Index of major beauties and bird names mentioned in the text rounds out this welcome and useful guide.