For the Birds Radio Program: Holiday Gift Ideas 2004, Part II
In addition to the ideas Laura presented yesterday, she recommends multimedia such as the Thayer guide–either the continental or the state version. She also recommends membership in the American Bird Conservancy. She explains some binocular basics, and recommends 8 power, mid-price models as a basic rule.
Transcript
Gift ideas II
Last time I made a few recommendations about gifts for the bird lover. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Handbook of Bird Biology is a treasure of ornithological information for the person who wants to probe deeply into bird biology. Lang Elliott’s Know Your Bird Sounds, newly published by Stackpole Books, is a CD and book set that replaces the identical CDs, which had originally been published by NorthWord but had gone out of print a few years ago. This set is great for beginners trying to learn common bird sounds, and for more advanced people who want to learn the contexts in which a great many vocalizations are made by common species. I also recommend the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs, Eastern Edition, for people who want a more complete set of the songs of our birds—this 3-CD set includes songs of 372 species.
But in this modern computer-oriented society, a lot of people want multimedia instead of simple CDs. For this, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology collaborated with Thayer Birding Software to produce their Guide to the Birds of North America. This CD-Rom set has a variety of photographs of each species, along with sound recordings, lots of detailed information and range maps, and sometimes even video clips. There are 930 species covered on the continent version, which costs $69.95 If that’s too much to spring for, you can get the Wisconsin or Minnesota “Our Birds” version—these are subsets of the North American version which cost $24.95—the Minnesota one covers 266 species found regularly in the state, and the Wisconsin one covers 268 species for the same price. If you buy one of the state versions and then suddenly wish you had access to more species, you can upgrade to the full version for 44.95, less than a dollar more than if you got the full set to begin with. I use my Thayer Birding Software for a variety of purposes—from getting a quick weight on a species to double checking the range, or learning about the conservation status.
For the conservation-minded birder, a great gift idea is a membership in the American Bird Conservancy. ABC has only 5,000 members, but has been at the lead in several issues critical for bird survival, including cats indoors, pesticides, habitat protection, and long-line fishing. You can learn all about them at their website, abcbirds.org.
Binoculars are a good idea for someone who doesn’t already have a pair. Most people, both beginners and advanced birders, prefer ones that magnify 8 times—this magnification is small enough to put a big chunk of the scene in the binoculars, making it easier to actually pull them up and have the bird in the view, compared with 10 power glasses, and 8 power binoculars also don’t magnify heat shimmer and shivering movements as badly as 10 power ones. Binoculars at the midrange in price, about $200 or so, tend to be enormously better than $50 binoculars, while not so very much worse than $1000 binoculars, so seem to be the best value. Eagle Optics in Madison, Wisconsin, and National Camera in Golden Valley, Minnesota, both offer discounts that are hard to match anywhere, both have great catalogs—online and paper—to help you choose the best pair for you, and both support conservation organizations.
These ideas and supporting links are on my website at www.lauraerickson.com.