"Better than 40 Below"
Resources

We found Bill Pranty, A Birder's Guide to Florida, ABA/Lane Birdfinding Guides, 2005, ISBN 1-878788-24-8 (available through the American Birding Association), to be extremely useful, probably the most valuable resource for finding good birding spots in northern Florida. Unlike The Great Florida Birding Trail Guides (see below), Pranty covers in detail the federal sites that are fine birding: National Forests, Refuges and Seashores. Highly recommended.

The Great Florida Birding Trail is published by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee and is a serious, useful effort to document birding spots throughout the state. It deserves your support. The maps are oddly organized, and the description of winter birds at least a bit optimistic, but the roadside signage is terrific and I wish more states were doing as well. Oddly, federal wildlife refuges and national forests are omitted; the focus is 90% on Florida State Parks and wildlife conservation areas. Still well worth the effort of getting the free regional map pamphlets.

If you are a serious birder, you'll need a good state map. We are big fans of DeLorme's Atlases, but in the case of Florida we were let down a little bit. The level of detail is inferior. State Parks, even large state parks, are often not shown. Roads are not labelled. So far as we kow, there is nothing better, and you probably want to have along DeLorme's Florida Atlas & Gazetteer, ISBN 0-89933-318-4, but it has some serious gaps.

We carry both the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 5th Ed., ISBN 0-7922-5314-0, and The Sibley Guide to Birds, ISBN 0-679-45122-6 (also available through the American Birding Association), and use them both. Each has its strengths; together they give you most of the help you could want in keying out the birds you see.

There are terrific Florida birding resources on the internet. These kinds of links tend to be volatile, but at this date try the Yahoo Group and Birding on the Net.

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