Well, there is a significant diversity of opinion regarding the top
ten essential books for the Cascadia Region. 42 separate title were
sent in. There were differences based on region and based on focus,
there was also diversity in approach to answering this question. Some,
I think chose to ignor or devalue the obvious (ie, NGS guide) in favor
of the purely regional, some went for the nuts and bolts of bird
identification and some even took an ecological approach.

But when all was said a done a useful starter's list of Cascadia
references emerged. 13 people participated in the survey, listing
there choices in order of preference (except for the one that was
in alphabetical order). The score represents 2 criteria. The first is
total ranking (10 to 1, with 130 cummulative possible). The second
value is the number of participants out of 13 who included the book
in their list.

1._Birds of North America_
Scott, Shirley L.(ed.) 1987 National Geographic Society, Washington D.C.
Score=102(12/13)

2._Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest_
Paulson, Dennis 1993 University of Washington Press, Seattle
Score=44(9/13)

3._The Birder's Guide to Oregon_
Evanich, Joseph E. 1990 Portland Audubon Society
Score=40(6/13)

4._Birds of Oregon_
Gilligan, Jeff, Mark Smith, Dennis Rogers & Alan Contreras 1995 Cinclus
Score=39(5/13)

5._Master's Guide to Birding (vol.1-3)_
Farrand, John (ed.) 1983 Alfred A. Knopf, NY
Score=33(5/13)

6._Birds of Washington_
Jewett, Stanley G., Walter P. Taylor, William T. Shaw, and John W.
Aldrich. 1953 University of Washington Press, Seattle,.
Score=31(4/13)

7._Birds of British Columbia:Vol. 1, Loons through Waterfowl, Vol. 2 Birds
of Prey through Woodpeckers_ (more to come)
Campbell, R. W. and five co-authors 1989 British Columbia Provincial Museum
Score=30(4/13)

8._Shorebirds:an identification guide_
Hayman, Peter, John Marchant & Tony Prater 1986 Houghton Mifflin, Boston
Score=29(5/13)

9._A Guide to Bird Finding in Washington_
Wahl, Terence & Dennis Paulson 1991
Score=27(6/13)

10._Western Birds_
Peterson, Roger Tory 1990 Houghton Mifflin, Boston
Score=26(5/13)


The complete list of all 42 books will be available soon (minus one or two
complete citations) at:

http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/references.html

As for me, it looks like my ridiculously large bird reference library will
be come a bit larger...

Thanks to all who participated,


--
*********************************** We're all living in the future.
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * I'll tell you how I know-
* mpatters at orednet.org * I read it in the paper 15 years ago..
*http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters* -John Prine