Pomona Valley Audubon -
Chaparral Naturalist Archives

For several years many of us who keep lists of the birds we have seen use a computer to compile those lists. Many of us have life lists or annual lists of birds of the world, North America, California and some people even keep county lists. We have found the computer invaluable for this purpose. However, now that computers are getting more and more sophisticated with action pictures and sounds, a series of newer programs are available that help the birder study bird actions, distribution, songs, calls and visual identification.

I recently bought a CD-ROM program which does just that. It is sold by Thayer and is called "Birds of North America." At the time I purchased it, I was aware that there were several other competitive programs available. But since I had seen this one demonstrated at a convention, I ordered the Thayer. Since that time PVAS has purchased the Audubon program titled "The National Audubon Society Interactive CD-ROM Guide to North American Birds." This may be checked out at our meetings from librarian, Sally McDonald. Another CD-ROM program based on the Peterson Guides is available as well. It is titled "Peterson Multimedia Guides: North American Birds, CD-ROM."

I have had an opportunity to test each one of the programs and the following is a comparison of the three.

All of the guides provide you with numerous pictures of the birds in various poses and plumages. They all have excellent reproduction of the bird calls and songs. They all have distribution maps. They all have tests of increasing complexity to test your bird identification skills.

The Thayer guide has included within it, the powerful "Birders Handbook" by Erlich, et. al. This details everything you want to know about a bird’s nest, eggs, habitats plus many general articles on bird biology and behavior.

Peterson features Roger Tory himself to guide you through the complexities of identification. This CD-ROM also includes a life list tool.

The Audubon version is similar to Thayer’s. It has provisions for planning trips to various regions. It may be used for both Macintosh or PC Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The others will work only on Windows 3.1 or 95. A 486-66 processor with plenty of memory and a good video card is needed.

All of the programs cost about $60-65. All may be ordered from Birdwatcher’s Digest at 1-800-879-2473. Thayer’s and Peterson’s may be ordered from the ABA at 1-800-634-7736. You might also try the Audubon Bookstore in West Hollywood at 213-876-0202. I have seen the Peterson’s at Border’s bookstore in Montclair.

If you have any questions about the suitability of your computer, please give me a call at 909-624-1126. I would suggest that you borrow the Audubon version from the PVAS library. Then you can try it on your computer without any financial risk.