Kathy,



In response to your question about online availability of worldwide range
maps.



NatureServe has some great resources for birds of the Americas. NatureServe
Explorer (www.natureserve.org/explorer) offers online search and viewing of
range maps for birds of North America, and InfoNatura does the same for
birds of Latin America (www.natureserve.org/infonatura). If you want to
download range maps, you can do that via NatureServe's Digital Distribution
Maps of the Birds of the Western Hemisphere
(www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp). You will also need to download
some free GIS (geographic information system) software for those.



Worldwide range maps are being developed by BirdLife International, but are
not yet publicly available.



Cheers,

Jon Hoekstra

Seattle, WA