The Birdlife of Florida compiles the life work of the foremost authority on Florida's birds, Henry M. Stevenson. For the last six years of his life, Stevenson worked with coauthor Bruce Anderson to complete this incomparable legacy, a reference of 665 detailed species accounts of all the state's avifauna, including the exotics. For each of the species accounts, Birdlife contains sections on world distribution and Florida status and, if appropriate, migration, breeding, Christmas Bird Count data, and haunts and habits. Other sections in some accounts include problems of identification, adverse factors, and variations (subspecies).

"There simply is no other single source that summarizes all this information. If this were to remain unpublished, people would make yearly pilgrimages to wherever the manuscript was being kept in order to consult it. . . . Establishes exactly what the scientific foundation is for our knowledge of the status and distribution of birds in Florida. . . . This book ought to hold the interest of scientists well outside the Southeast and will be of international significance."--Storrs L. Olson, Smithsonian Institution

The Birdlife of Florida compiles the life work of the foremost authority on Florida's birds, Henry M. Stevenson. For the last six years of his life, Stevenson worked with coauthor Bruce Anderson to complete this incomparable legacy, a reference of 665 detailed species accounts of all the state's avifauna, including the exotics. For each of the species accounts, Birdlife contains sections on world distribution and Florida status and, if appropriate, migration, breeding, Christmas Bird Count data, and haunts and habits. Other sections in some accounts include problems of identification, adverse factors, and variations (subspecies). During the nineteen years of this book's preparation Stevenson personally checked the data and identification of most Florida specimens that exist in museum collections. Much of the information comes from his own field notes, kept meticulously since the 1940s. Because of its geographical position relative to the Bahamas, the West Indies, and the flight paths of North American migrants, Florida is one of the most important areas for eastern U.S. and tropical ornithology. This remarkable contribution to the literature of Florida's natural history will interest a wide array of biologists and serious birders in and out of the state. It includes range maps of most species and an extensive bibliography of 168 pages.