Welcome! You have found your way to all the online content for the February 2015 issue of Birding. First things first. If you are a current ABA member, then you have access right now to the entire February issue online. Actually, you have access to more than the entire February issue! An expanded online version of the magazine contains additional analysis of the Featured Photo and the full text of all the book reviews.
Green Herons in the Everglades. Composition from field sketches in mangrove habitat—watercolor on 140-lb. cold-pressed Arches paper. By © Rafael Galvez.
Once you’ve made your way to the February issue online, start leafing through the magazine—just as you would the print version. The arrows, pointing right and left, guide you forward and backward through the magazine. After just a little bit of practice, the online experience becomes as natural as engaging old-fashioned ink and paper.
With the expanded online version of Birding, you can go straight to any particular article of interest. Just find your way to the Table of Contents (pp. 3 and 5), click on any title, and off you go. For example, here’s Tom Johnson’s expanded analysis of the Featured Photo. Keep in mind that a great deal of content in Birding magazine is open for discussion at The ABA Blog. So it is with the February featured photo, where ABA members are sharing their questions and insights about identifying these strangely headless birds.
Same idea with the book reviews.
ABA members have access to the full text in magazine format of Keith Betton’s review of a new Helm Guide to Bird ID, as well as to the blog version with interactive comments.
Donna Schulman’s review of a dark appreciation of the Double-crested Cormorant likewise can be read in magazine format at the ABA website or in interactive format at The ABA Blog.
And Robert Gerson’s review of John M. Marzluff’s surprising and controversial Subirdia is available too in both formats—in the expanded online edition of Birding and as a post to The ABA Blog.
The February issue of Birding is the annual “Bird of the Year” issue, featuring commemorative cover art, high-quality stickers, and a coloring page. We’re aware that a few members’ magazines are missing the stickers; if that’s the case, please contact Liz Gordon at the ABA, and she’ll rush yours out to you. And check this out: Do you want an extra coloring page? 10 more? 100 more? No problem! Just go to the online edition of Birding, and print out as copies of the coloring page as you want. Find the little PDF doohickey, press download, and—voilà!—you have 2, 20, or 200 more copies.
A final thought. With more electronic content than ever before, one could be excused for imagining that print content for members is diminishing. Not so! Although the actual page count is down in Birding, designer Ed Rother’s efficient layouts mean that the total number of words and images is about the same as in the past. And then there’s Birder’s Guide, the ABA’s new, quarterly, full-color, print publication, featuring some of the strongest content the ABA has to offer: annual issues devoted to gear, travel, listing & taxonomy, and conservation & community. Birding and Birder’s Guide together mean more pages than ever before for ABA members. Plus, our ever-expanding offerings online. Do we live in exciting times or what?
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Not an ABA member? Well, don’t just sit there…do something! Join the ABA today, and get the February 2015 Birding, plus all the other benefits of membership.
