The Yellow Book
When I started birding, one of the first orders of business was to acquire one's copy of the indispensable "Yellow Book", the summary of Maryland birds and where and when they've been recorded. This treasure should be kept in every birder's glove box, and if possible, a second more immaculate copy should be secured somewhere convenient at home. Of course a worn copy of the Maryland DeLorme map was to be jammed between the front seats somewhere.
The third edition of the Yellow Book was published in May 1996 and was written by Bob Ringler, Jim Stasz, and Marshall Iliff. It answered at a glance questions like "Did I see an Eastern Phoebe or an Eastern Wood-Pewee today (March 2nd)." Oh, okay, phoebe, as there are no March records for wood-pewee. Or, oh, that seems late! Is it? Yes, a thin line after the start of the month...
Well, the Yellow Book is out-of-print and no longer available on the MOS page, BUT you can now download a copy from the Harvard Biodiversity Heritage Library here - https://ia601201.us.archive.org/35/items/FieldlistbirdsM00Ilif/FieldlistbirdsM00Ilif.pdf
You can also download the 1968 version by Chan Robbins and Willet T. Van Velzen here - https://mdbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/yb1968.pdf
Awesome! You should definitely do that and archive your copy at home and on your device.
While clicking things, if you love birds and are not a member of Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS), please consider joining: https://mdbirds.org/join/
Bar charts are powerful. You can now see them for all species at Maryland Biodiversity Project based on the data we've ingested. For birds, you can also go to eBird and navigate to Explore > Bar Charts and the state and/or county/counties of interest. Here's the all-time Maryland eBird bar chart. Also invaluable!
https://ebird.org/barchart?byr=1900&eyr=2022&bmo=1&emo=12&r=US-MD
Is there some shared inspiration between the Yellow Book and that bar chart? I dare say so! (Especially since Yellow Book co-author and Maryland's own Marshall Iliff joined eBird early on and remains there to this day!)
Love the data.
Collect more data.
Protect the things.
Bill
Comentarios
Thank you for this post! I've always wanted one of these but never knew where to buy it-- always made me feel like an inadequate birder without one when meeting with the big scopes. Despite no longer living in Maryland, I will happily print this out and bind it together with the best sturdy yellow paper I can find and add it to my glovebox!
Edit: Upon further review, the Harvard copy seems like the scanner was a little misaligned (no judgement, aren't we all sometimes....). MD birds also has a link to a less grainy/distorted version of the iconic Third Edition that might work better for printing here: https://mdbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Birds-of-MD-FINAL.pdf
Thank you Bill!! My copy will be safely tucked away in my iPhone -- the modern glove box!!
I remember Jim Stasz passing them out like candy from the back of his Subaru! Used to keep one in each car. Would love for a new edition some day. That book is worth its weight in gold.
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