Peter from the Museum Info Project has been asking on this group
about comparisons of the major ornithology societies. All of them
have refereed scientific journals which publish work of quality. I
definitely don't want to find myself saying that one journal is
better than the other. Which is best depends on what you want the
journal for. Auk and Condor, no matter how you look at it, though,
are highly respected journals which publish a wide variety of subject
matter with respect to birds. The Cooper Society (which publishes
Condor) is supposedly a western US group, but articles in Condor come
from all over the country. Similar for the Wilson Society in the
eastern US. Personally, I think Wilson Bulletin was very exciting in
the 60's and 70's, but I haven't read as much from it recently. But
that doesn't mean necessarily that it has gone down in quality. I'm
just not as familiar with more recent Wilson Bulletins. Journal of
Field Ornithology is much more specialized than the others. The AFO
has a strong amateur ornithologist membership and puts great emphasis
on bird-banding studies and other field work especially with natural
experiments. The other three journals all publish laboratory studies
often and emphasize field experiments more than natural experiments;
they are also less likely than Journal of Field Ornithology to
publish papers about techniques. If bird-banding and similar work is
what you're most interested in, then Journal of Field Ornithology is
for you.

My favorite ornithological journal is one you haven't even mentioned -
Journal of Avian Biology (recently changed name from Ornis
Scandinavaca) - based in Scandinavia but with plenty of papers from
the US and elsewhere. I find that work from that journal is cited
almost as widely as from the Auk. And it's in most university
libraries. This brings up a point. Ehrlich's book probably doesn't
cite Ibis so heavily because it's a British journal, and he just
didn't read it quite as often. Foreign journals are not any worse
than American ones just a little less familiar. There are several
good foreign ornithology journals - including Emu, Ardea, British
Birds, and Japanese Journal of Ornithology.

There are also lots of good journals in this country which are
restricted to certain taxa within birds: Journal of Raptor Research,
Colonial Waterbirds, I think the Pacific Seabird Group has one but I
don't recall for sure, etc.

And then there's just tons of little regional journals all over the
place that keep on top of bird items very specific to the area: Bird
Observer of eastern Mass., Chat (So. Carolina), Blue Jay (Saskatch.),
etc. Those tend not to be refereed or quite as "professional," but
from a birdwatcher's perspective they are often much more relevant,
useful, and informative than a journal like the Auk.

If you just kind of want to stay on top of ornithology in general,
then I'd recommend the Auk, I guess. But I've used articles from
all the journals I've mentioned at one time or another, and all are
fine journals.

Peter Whitlock
Boise State University