Print Resources

The Site Guides and Bird Guides can be found at most specialty birding stores including Wild Bird Center and Wild Birds Unlimited as well as at large chain bookstores. The Maps can be found at large chain bookstores and department stores such as Walmart, Borders, or Barnes & Noble. You can also look online at sites such as Amazon.com

--Site Guides--
A Birder's Guide to the Chicago Region:
By Lynne Carpenter and Joel Greenberg
This guide provides excellent descriptions and directions to more than 250 excellent birding sites in NE Illinois as well as nearby counties in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. Other highlights include site productivity ranked by season, monthly birding suggestions, and a brief guide to each bird species with overall rarity and the best spots to view them.

Birding Illinois:
By Sheryl DeVore
This guide provides excellent descriptions and directions to more than 110 premier birding locations throughout Illinois. A great companion to the above title for those who like to broaden their birding to areas further away from home. Other highlights include a guide to 54 Illinois "Specialty Birds" and an excellent checklist of almost all Illinois bird species with an uncomparable rarity "bar" that shows the bird's rarity/abundance by month and even quarter months.

--Maps--
Rand McNally - DuPage & Kane Counties Street Finder:
A very detailed map book showing basically ALL streets and roads in DuPage County and Kane County. A great resource for anyone unfamiliar with any portions of either of these two counties and their forest preserves.

DeLorme - Illinois Atlas & Gazetteer:
A detailed map book with about 95 sectioned maps showing almost all county and state roads, even including many minor gravel roads. Excellent for long-distance trips and for chasing after reported rarities.

--Birding Guides--
The Sibley Guide to Birds:
Written and illustrated by David Allen Sibley
Put down your Peterson's, shelf your Golden Guide, store your National Geo., file your Stokes, and stash your Kaufmen's. The Sibley Guide to Birds is, by far, the most accurate and helpful guide available to date. We all have our favorite "first" bird guide, myself included, but if you cringe whenever anyone mentions "peeps", "sparrows", "gulls", "immatures", or "confusing fall warblers" than the Sibley Guide to Birds is a must-have. It may take some time to get use to this new guide with "cartoonish, brightly colored birds", but once you dive in you will quickly see how accurately David Allen Sibley captures a bird's shape, coloring, and patterns.

The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America:
Written and illustrated by David Allen Sibley
One of the newer additions to the Sibley series, this is an excellent companion (or replacement) guide to the above title. This new guide comes in a much more compact form that can be easily carried in the field and covers only the birds that are seen in Eastern North America (but still as far west as the Dakotas and parts of Texas).