Biggest Week in American Birding
Posted on May 8, 2026
by Amy H
The Biggest Week in American Birding, the fledgling birding festival that hatched 15 years ago, has become an international event drawing flocks of visitors from around the world to northwest Ohio. The Black Swamp Bird Observatory will be inundated with passionate birders of all levels as the spring songbird migration hits its peak in an area widely known as the Warbler Capital of the World. Tourism officials estimate more than 80,000 visitors participate in birding activities in the region during the month, though the 10-day festival itself runs just from May 8 to May 17, 2026. Here are some great books on the joys of observing our flighty friends.
national geographic field guide to the birds of the united states and canada east by Ted Floyd
An entirely updated edition of the classic bestselling regional bird field guide from National Geographic, covering the U.S. and Canada east of the Rockies. Provides ID information, data-driven maps, and annotated illustrations of more than 800 bird species.
the birding dictionary by Rosemary Mosco
Acclaimed science communicator and cartoonist Rosemary Mosco offers a clever, humorous "dictionary" that's perfect for any birder. The Birding Dictionary is filled with hilarious and informative definitions for more than 200 birding terms, plus over 50 witty full‑color illustrations. Terms range from bird species, anatomy, and behaviors to the insider jargon that all birders know and speak fluently, from "alpha code" to "zygodactyl."
turning to birds by Lili Taylor
Most people don't really know birds--or rather, they aren't aware of them. Lili Taylor used to be one of those people. She knew birds existed. She thought about them, maybe even more than the average person. But she didn't know them. And then something happened. During a break from her work as an actor, Lili sought silence and instead found the bustling, symphonic world of birds that had always existed around her. Through a series of beautifully crafted essays, Taylor shares her intimate encounters with the birds that have captured her heart and imagination--from tracking flitting Zorros through oak trees to spotting majestic Blue Jays perched on a Manhattan fire escape; from the exhilaration of chasing a migratory flock up the Empire State Building to the quiet joy of observing a nest of hatchlings in her own backyard. Through simply paying attention to birds, Lili has been shown a parallel world that is wider and deeper, one of constant change and movement, full of life and the will to survive. This book is part-memoir, part-love letter to the beauty and resilience of the natural world--a reminder of the profound connections that exist between all living things.
birding for boomers by Sneed B. Collard
a friendly, accessible, and humorous guide to discovering the joys of bird watching. Beginning birders of all ages will get answers to every question they may have, like which birds like feeders, the difference between a finch and a flicker, or which birding app to use. The guide also helps birders plan everything from local explorations to exciting 'bird-cations.' Late-bloomer birders will appreciate Collard’s personal insights and tips for overcoming aging-related challenges such as physical handicaps, poor hearing, or failing eyesight. Additional sections cover sharing birding with others and contributing to community science, habitat stewardship, and bird conservation. Appealing and light-hearted, Birding for Boomers will help a wide range of readers overcome any doubts and get started with watching, understanding, and conserving our feathered friends.
bird watching by Jessica Vaughan
Sometimes, all it takes is a "spark bird" to open the door. A bird, seen well, so unexpectedly beautiful and interesting that it cracks you wide open. Bird Watching For Dummies is a spark book, teaching you all you need to know about this fun, affordable, and accessible hobby. It gently guides as you explore your local habitats, learn to recognize more and more species, and reap the many mental health benefits of connecting to the outdoors and all the wonders it holds. This book gets you started, teaching you how to identify birds by sight and sound, find birdwatching hotspots, and get the birds to come to your own backyard. You'll learn about the latest gear, the best field guides and online apps that will jump-start your bird identification skills. Into photography? This book has your back, with tips on getting good photos for identification and aesthetic purposes. Find out how to join a local bird club, find a field trip or a group tour to rainforest, desert, seacoast, mountains or prairie. Every habitat has its own special birds, and when the birding bug bites, you'll want to see them all.
birdwatching guide by Elissa Wolfson
Start your birdwatching journey in the safe hands of a lifelong birder. Through a series of chapters, you will build from an absolute beginner, exploring your own backyard, soaking up useful tips and insights gained from years of birdwatching. Whether you are in a city or deep in the country, birds are guaranteed and provide an easy doorway into nature. Learn where, when, and how to look and what to look out for. Find out what equipment to buy and how to use it. Discover the different characters and characteristics of birds--from the shy bittern to the bold robin and gymnastic red kite. As you build skills and experience, the book will help you expand horizons from walks with binoculars around your "local patch" to visiting remote wildlife reserves and other nature hot spots, with their contrasting birdlife and different demands, from dense woodland to expansive estuaries teeming with flocks of waders.
the courage of birds by Pete Dunne
Despite the seasonal life-sapping cold, birds have evolved strategies that meet winter's vicissitudes head on, driven by the imperative to make it to spring and pass down their genes to the next generation. The drama of winter and the resilience and adaptability of birds witnessed in the harsher months of the calendar is both fascinating and astonishing. In The Courage of Birds, Pete Dunne expertly explores widespread adaptations, such as feathers that protect against the cold, and unpacks the unique migration patterns and survival strategies of individual species. Dunne also addresses the impact of changing climatic conditions on avian longevity and recounts personal anecdotes that soar with a naturalist's gimlet eye.
birding to change the world by Trish O'Kane
Trish O’Kane is an accidental ornithologist. In her nearly two decades writing about justice as an investigative journalist, she'd never paid attention to nature. But then Hurricane Katrina destroyed her New Orleans home, sending her into an emotional tailspin. Enter a scrappy cast of feathered characters-first a cardinal, urban parrots, and sparrows, then a catbird, owls, a bittern, and a woodcock-that cheered her up and showed her a new path. Inspired, O'Kane moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to pursue an environmental studies PhD. There she became a full-on bird obsessive-logging hours in a stunningly biodiverse urban park, filling field notebooks with bird doings and dramas, and teaching ornithology to college students and middle-school kids. When Warner Park-her daily birdwatching haven-was threatened with development, O’Kane and her neighbors mustered a mighty murmuration of nature lovers, young and old, to save the birds' homes. Through their efforts, she learned that once you get outside and look around, you're likely to fall in love with a furred or feathered creature-and find a flock of your own. In Birding to Change the World, O'Kane details the astonishing science of bird life, from migration and parenting to the territorial defense strategies that influenced her own activism. A warm and compelling weave of science and social engagement, this is the story of an improbably band of bird lovers who saved their park. And it is a blueprint for muscular citizenship, powered by joy.
dare to bird by Melissa Hafting
Melissa Hafting is an ethical, passionate, and respected birder, photographer, and mentor. Her love for birding has shaped who she is, improved her mental health, and enabled her to cope with the difficult aspects of grief and loss after the deaths of her mother and father. Showcasing some of Melissa's most stunning bird images from across North America, Dare to Bird explores the joy that birding and photography has brought to her life. These passions have allowed her to foster meaningful connections with young birders from diverse backgrounds, with the conservation community, eco-travel advocates, rare bird enthusiasts, and ethical wildlife viewing practitioners, all working together to preserve bird habitats that are constantly under threat. At the same time, she is determined to expand birding to include more diverse enthusiasts through youth outreach and talking about the barriers she herself has faced in her journey to become part of the birding community.
the backyard bird chronicles by Amy Tan
Known for her award-winning novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan is also a passionate birder. In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater-an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired. The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.
bird-friendly gardening by Jen McGuinness
Bird-Friendly Gardening is the definitive guide to planting a wildlife-welcoming home landscape filled with a diversity of native plants that feed, shelter, and support birds. With hundreds of North American bird species facing population decline, right now is the perfect time to create a home-based habitat garden that offers birds the resources they need to safely feed, migrate, breed, and thrive. Thankfully, making your outdoor space a secure and comfortable haven for many different bird species isn't a Herculean task. It's a matter of understanding the needs of our avian friends and how native plants, combined with purposeful garden design, can help meet those needs. And that's exactly the know-how you'll find here, outlined in a simple-to-follow, actionable format by author Jennifer McGuinness. Step beyond the seed-filled bird feeder and suet block, and learn how to further provide for birds. YOU can make a significant impact on the lives of thousands of birds , whether they're just passing through during migration or making a feather-lined summertime home for raising the next generation. It's time for gardeners from coast to coast to heed the call and welcome their flighty friends home with Bird-Friendly Gardening .
making bird-friendly birdhouses by Melvin Toellner
As popular as birdhouses are, many are designed with aesthetics in mind, rather than the bird's preferences and needs. Not so for the projects in Making Bird-Friendly Birdhouses. Lifelong birder Mel "Bird Man Mel" Toellner and pro woodworker Matt Maguire walk readers step-by-step through 15+ projects for safe birdhouses that birds find conducive to their natural nesting habitats. They begin with a comprehensive introduction to why birdhouses are so important, and why the birdhouses should be created with specific birds in mind like bluebirds, wrens, chickadees, owls and even bats! With additional sections on distribution maps, detailed plans, mounting instructions, and tips on attracting birds to your yard, it has everything you need to create a successful backyard haven for your winged friends.
find more birds by Heather Wolf
Seeing more birds than you ever imagined and witnessing exciting avian drama is possible--whether you’re on the go or in your own neighborhood, local park, or backyard. As Heather Wolf explains, it all comes down to how you tune in to the show happening around you, the one in which birds--highly skilled at staying under the radar--are the stars. In Find More Birds, Heather shares her very best tactics--and the jaw-dropping photographs they helped her capture.
the (big) year that flew by by Arjan Dwarshuis
An epic tale of one passionate birder's record-breaking adventure through 40 countries over 6 continents - in just one year - to see over 7,000 bird species, rare and common, before many go extinct. When author Arjan Dwarshuis first heard of the "Big Year" - the legendary record for birdwatching - he was twenty years old, it was midnight, and he was sitting on the roof of a truck in the Andean Mountains. In that moment he promised himself that, someday, somehow, he would become a world-record-holding birder. Ten years later, he embarked on an incredible, arduous, and perilous journey that took him around the globe; over uninhabited islands, through dense unforgiving rainforests, across snowy mountain peaks and unrelenting deserts - in just a single year. Would he survive? Would he be able to break the "Big Year" record, navigating through a world filled with shifting climate and geopolitical challenges? The (Big) Year that Flew By is an unforgettable, personal exploration of the limits of human potential when engaging with the natural world. It is a book about birds and birding and Arjan's attempts to raise awareness for critically endangered species, but it is also a book about overcoming mental challenges, extreme physical danger, and human competition and fully realizing your passions through nature, adventure, and conservation.
flight paths by Rebecca Heisman
For the past century, scientists and naturalists have been steadily unravelling the secrets of bird migration. How and why birds navigate the skies, traveling from continent to continent--flying thousands of miles across the earth each fall and spring--has continually fascinated the human imagination, but only recently have we been able to fully understand these amazing journeys. Although we know much more than ever before, even the most enthusiastic birdwatcher may not know how we got here, the ways that the full breadth of scientific disciplines have come together to reveal these annual avian travels. Flight Paths is the never-before-told story of how a group of migration-obsessed scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries engaged nearly every branch of science to understand bird migration--from where and when they take off to their flightpaths and behaviors, their destinations and the challenges they encounter getting there.
slow birding by Joan Strassmann
Many birders travel far and wide to popular birding destinations to catch sight of rare or "exotic" birds. In Slow Birding, evolutionary biologist Joan E. Strassmann introduces readers to the joys of birding right where they are. In this inspiring guide to the art of slow birding, Strassmann tells colorful stories of the most common birds to be found in the United States-birds we often see but might not have considered deeply before.
better living through birding by Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd” (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder. In May 2020, Cooper was birdwatching in Central Park, NYC, when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions, and the video of the incident went viral. Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions around the world. Cooper shares his journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.
all about birds
This dynamic guide is the perfect companion for anyone interested in the birds of the midwestern United States and central Canada. The guide offers fascinating details about the birds around you, useful bird ID tips, and handy bird-watching information. It presents full accounts of the 221 species most commonly seen in these regions; beautiful photographs of male, female, and immature birds, as well as morphs, and breeding and nonbreeding plumage (so you can ID birds all year long); current range maps; and so much more.
bird planet by Tim Laman
Birder extraordinaire Tim Laman is a superstar in one of photography's most challenging pursuits: the quest to portray birds in the wild. A naturalist and explorer as well as a brilliant image maker, he has spent thousands of hours over more than 30 years wedged precariously in the tops of trees, often in remote jungles, in the hope that careful planning and good fortune will align to produce the perfect picture. Laman shares his best images of spectacular birds on all continents, from the scarlet ibis of the Orinoco River in Venezuela to rhinoceros hornbills in the rainforests of Borneo; his familiar backyard American birds are as memorable as his poetic red-crowned cranes in snowy Japan. His signature achievement--to photograph all the known species of birds of paradise, spending 18 months in New Guinea over eight years--gets a chapter, as does his visits to the penguins of Antarctica. Immensely knowledgeable about both nature and photography, Laman is the perfect guide to the kingdom of the birds.
the birds that audubon missed by Kenn Kaufman
Raging ambition. Towering egos. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science. The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating great art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible, obsessed with trying to outdo his rivals. George Ord held a bitter grudge against Audubon for years, claiming he had faked much of his information and his scientific claims. A few of Audubon's birds were pure fiction, and some of his writing was invented or plagiarized. Other naturalists of the era, including Charles Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon), John Townsend, and Thomas Nuttall, also became entangled in the scientific derby, as they stumbled toward an understanding of the natural world--an endeavor that continues to this day. Despite this intense competition, a few species--including some surprisingly common songbirds, hawks, sandpipers, and more--managed to evade discovery for years. Here, renowned bird expert and artist Kenn Kaufman explores this period in history from a new angle, by considering the birds these people discovered and, especially, the ones they missed. Kaufman has created portraits of the birds that Audubon never saw, attempting to paint them in that artist's own stunning style, showing how our understanding of birds continues to gain clarity, even as some mysteries persist from Audubon's time until ours.
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