[Birdtalk] Cornell's Birds of North America Online

[Kristin Purdy]

Both Stephen Peterson and I mined a rich vein of information in our attempts 
to answer Ryan O'Donnell's question about Brown Creeper behavior--Cornell's 
Bird's of North America Online, and you've seen other references to this 
resource in the past. BNA is the venerable series of species profiles on 
virtually every bird in North America that used to be available only by 
subscription in paper to university libraries and such. The original 
profiles were intended for the scientific community. Birders who don't have 
the science background might find them intimidating; I found I had to have a 
dictionary open in my lap to wade through every one.

Cornell and the American Ornithologist's Union made a brilliant move, 
however, when they began to provide the profiles online for a subscription 
service--each profile was rewritten in layman's terms (shall I say "dumbed 
down?") so those of us who don't have ornithological backgrounds can still 
benefit from the marvelous information the profiles offer. My theory is that 
both scientific entities wanted to appeal to a much broader sector, the 
birding community, for the sake of gaining subscriptions. It works for me.

The subscription costs $40.00 per year and it's well-worth it. I tend not to 
read birding magazines and then they pile up until I chuck them into the 
recycling barrel, unread. But the Cornell info is always there whenever I 
login on exactly the species I wish to research, like the Brown Creeper. The 
references each author cites are another treasure trove; for instance, I 
came across the reference to Brown Creeper sunbathing in Cornell and then 
found the article at SORA, the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive: 
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/wb/v20n02/p0091-p0092.pdf. I noticed that 
Stephen took a similar path by citing references in his reply to Ryan.

Cornell's Lab of Ornithology is a non-profit entity and Birds of North 
America Online offers several sample accounts so that you may review the 
information while considering a subscription. Here's a link: 
http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna

Kris