After twenty-five years any reliable breeding bird atlas is bound to require updating if it is to present an accurate picture of the given geographic region’s reproducing avifauna. Thus, editors Paul G. Rodewald, Matthew B. Shumar, Aaron T. Boone, David L. Slager, and Jim McCormac set out to bring the original Atlas of Breeding bird in Ohio up to date with the most recent information available about the state’s birdlife – the result being the newly released Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Ohio from Penn State Press.
Thanks to the efforts of its editors, and the nine hundred bird watchers who contributed date to make it possible, the “current distribution and changes in status for more than two hundred bird species in Ohio, including five new breeding species and five species not known to have bred in over fifty years” are now available for any and all interested to discover.
And, lest I neglect to mention it, the cover sports a lovely original painting by Ohio’s own long-time resident natural history artist Julie Zickefoose.
