Dictionary of Birds of the United States

A nice book with birds listed alphabetically by their scientific names. While James Jobling (Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names) offers an exhaustive explanation for ALL Latin bird names, therefore maybe a better pick to buy, if you want to get into details of vernacular names or interested in scientific names of North American birds only, than go for it. I found very soon some little mistakes or weak points (in the References section Jobling's name was misspelled; Streptopelia decaocto DOES have a call similar to the pronounciation of its species name; to my regret I did not find Middendorff's Grasshopper-Warbler on the list, etc.)but this is the only reason I gave only 4 stars to the book. So is it just another book in this topic? If you already have a library on bird names you may not find much new in the book, although the b/w illustrations are still nice. On the other hand, if you are looking for the first or only book on American and scientific names in the Nearctic it is a well compiled book for the purpose. As a person keeping my eyes open for information on nomenclature and etymology of bird names I can also recommend to all those with a similar interest.

A significant and core contribution to personal and professional ornithology reference collections, Joel Ellis Holloway's Dictionary Of Birds Of The U.S. is the most complete, updated dictionary of names of American birds available, hosting over 900 entries and including both resident birds and escaped and exotic visitors. Scholars and amateur birders receive a work which brings the derivation of scientific bird names back to original Greek and source languages, providing an important focus on both scientific and common name origins.