Merlin Bird ID by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (continuously updated). FREE
A very fun and helpful app for your phone. The Merlin app can help you identify birds by sound or by photo or by description. You can also use the "Explore" feature look up birds by name and see photos, descriptions, ranges and sounds, etc.
Sibley Birds v2 by David Sibley, 2018. $20
A comprehensive digital field guide app to the birds of North America. It contains all of the information from the Sibley printed guide plus thousands of recorded bird sounds and the ability to compare species side-by-side on your phone.
eBird app and eBird.com by the Cornell Lab of ornithology (continuously updated). FREE. An app for your phone and a comprehensive website for keeping lists of your bird sightings, exploring what birds others have seen, and finding nearby birding hotspots to visit.
Birds of Southern California by Kimball Garrett and Jon Dunn, 2012. $25
This is my favorite starter book for southern California. It's written by two of California's most respected birding experts including Jon Dunn (who also wrote many editions of the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America). It *only* lists the birds you'd expect to see here in San Diego which makes flipping through pages to ID a bird a much nicer experience.
The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region by Donald Stokes, 2013. $20
Eve's favorite bird guide book. It relies on in-depth text descriptions to ID the birds including written descriptions of every age, gender and seasonal plumage with excellent photographs of most of the plumages as well.
Sibley Birds West: Field Guide to Birds of Western North America by David Sibley, 2016. $15. Many experts' favorite field guide. It relies on excellent drawings of most of the various plumages of the species and uses brief text to point out distinguishing features of the birds.
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