Birds of Minnesota, field guide and 2 audio cd set of bird songs and calls, by Stan Tekiela.

Recently picked this up on amazon for $20 and finally discovered that one of the bird songs I heard every day on our last trip is that of a White Throated Sparrow.

The birds in the field book are organized by prominent color, which is certainly different then our other two birding field books which are organized by bird type. There is a sigle picture with a paragraph of information on each bird. In addition, there are entries to stock data questions such as: size, nest, eggs, incubation, fledging, migration, food, and comparisons to similar looking birds.

I thought the National Geographic field guide and the Sibley's birding basics were better books to learn from, but this one has some additional information as well as the audio bird calls on CD. The way the birds are organized by color might be good for someone like me just starting out too.

BT

A few White Throats have already made it up here (east central MN) already.  Heard a solitary shrill note or two even a couple weeks back.

Likewise, one of my favorites.

Jimbo   

The "pink throats" aren't much of a songbird, WR, despite their other undeniable fine qualities.

For me, the song of the white throat is the song of the North.

Jimbo   

Those little birds are sometimes hard to see, but they sure sound happy. At times I would just catch a glimpse or see more then one bird, but we could hear them on most of the lakes.

Just before loading the canoe one morning to leave our campsite, I tried imatating the sparrows call.  Three or four birds came over from across the small bay and I actually ducked (lol), at least one landed on the branch right above my head, and one bird looked different then the others. They stayed for a minute and soon left. I tried for the rest of the week to get them to come closer again, but couldn't get a repeat.