"Based on an analysis of 47 years (1967-2014) of Audubon Christmas Bird Counts (CBC), evidence for population changes and shifts in early winter (late December) ranges of nearly 150 species of birds in the Great Plains states is summarized, a region defined as including the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle. The rationale for this study had its origins in Terry Root's 1988 Atlas of North American Wintering Birds. ... The present analysis includes all of the 40 annual CBC surveys from the 1967-8 to the 2006-7 counts, plus the results of the most recent 2013-14 CBC. The present summary quantitatively describes the early winter abundance for 147 of the most commonly encountered regional species, illustrating their temporal changes in geographic distributions and relative abundance between 1967 and 2014"--Publisher description.

These fourteen essays originally appeared in Prairie Fire, a monthly newspaper that for seven years has carried important messages of social, environmental, and economic issues to residents of Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, and South Dakota, and subscribers in the rest of the world. They discuss the North American east-west ecological boundaries, spring migration events, bird feeders, feathered survivors of a glacial past, the threatened sharp-tailed grouse, the effects of climate change, some "sacred places"-Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, the Ashfall Fossil Beds, Squaw Creek Refuge, the Hutton Niobrara Ranch Sanctuary, and Yellowstone National Park-, our troubles with mountain lions and grizzly bears, and crane season in Wyoming. There is also an expanded informal autobiography, "My Life in Biology" and a current and comprehensive list of all publications of a writer described as "probably the world's most prolific living author of ornithological and natural history literature."

Part I. The Brinton Museum and Its Birds Part II. Profiles of 48 Common Local and Regional Birds: Ring-necked Pheasant, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Cooper's Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Sandhill Crane, Killdeer, Eastern Screech-Owl, Great Horned Owl, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Calliope Hummingbird, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Red-naped Sapsucker, Northern Flicker, American Kestrel, Western Wood-Pewee, Say's Phoebe, Eastern Kingbird, Black-billed Magpie, American Crow, Common Raven, Tree Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Black-capped Chickadee, Mountain Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, House Wren, American Dipper, Mountain Bluebird, Cedar Waxwing, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Spotted Towhee, Vesper Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Western Tanager, Black-headed Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Western Meadowlark, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, House Finch, Cassin's Finch, Red Crossbill, Pine Siskin, American Goldfinch

Among birds, swans are relatively long-lived species and are also among the most strongly monogamous, having prolonged pair and family bonds that strongly influence their reproductive and general social behavior, which, in combination with their beauty and elegance, contribute to the overall high degree of worldwide human interest in them. This volume of more than 59,000 words describes the distributions, ecology, social behavior, and breeding biologies of the four species of swans that breed or have historically bred in North America, including the native trumpeter and tundra swans, the introduced mute swan, and the marginally occurring whooper swan. Also included are 5 distribution maps, 15 drawings, 27 photographs by the author, and a reference section of nearly 1,000 literature citations.

This volume, the fourth in a series of books that collectively update and expand P.A. Johnsgard's 1975 The Waterfowl of North America, summarizes research findings on this economically and ecologically important group of waterfowl. The volume includes the mostly tropical perching duck tribe Cairinini, of which two species, the muscovy duck and the wood duck, are representatives. Both species are adapted for foraging on the water surface, mostly on plant materials, but typically perch in trees and nest in elevated tree cavities or other elevated recesses. This volume also includes the dabbling, or surface-feeding, duck tribe Anatini, a large assemblage of duck species that mainly forage on the water surface but nest on the ground, or only very rarely in elevated locations. Of this tribe, 12 species that regularly breed in North America are included, among them such familiar species as mallards, wigeons, pintails, and teal. Descriptive accounts of the distributions, populations, ecologies, social-sexual behaviors, and breeding biology of all these species are provided, together with distribution maps. Five additional Eurasian and West Indian species have been reported several times in North America; these have been included with more abbreviated accounts, but all 17 species are illustrated by drawings, photographs, or both. The text includes about 84,000 words and contains more than 1,000 references. There are also 12 distribution maps, 21 drawings, 28 photographic plates, and 58 anatomical or behavioral sketches.

This book documents nearly 500 US and Canadian locations where wildlife refuges, nature preserves, and similar properties protect natural sites that lie within the North American Great Plains, from Canada's Prairie Provinces to the Texas-Mexico border. Information on site location, size, biological diversity, and the presence of especially rare or interesting flora and fauna are mentioned, as well as driving directions, mailing addresses, and phone numbers or internet addresses, as available. US federal sites include 11 national grasslands, 13 national parks, 16 national monuments, and more than 70 national wildlife refuges. State properties include nearly 100 state parks and wildlife management areas. Also included are about 60 national and provincial parks, national wildlife areas, and migratory bird sanctuaries in Canada's Prairie Provinces. Many public-access properties owned by counties, towns, and private organizations are also described.

This annotated list of the birds of Nebraska grew gradually out of research associated with my writing of the Birds of the Great Plains: Breeding Species and Their Distribution (Johnsgard, 1979a). It expands and updates an earlier version that was published in 2013 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries DigitalCommons' Zea Books (Johnsgard, 2013a). It has been updated and modified in its current revision to conform with the most recent (2017) major revision of the American Ornithologists' Society's Checklist of North American Birds (Chesser et al., 2017). It has also been modified in its current revision to conform very closely to the most recent "Official List of the Birds of Nebraska" by the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union (Gubanyi, 1997, and later supplements in the Nebraska Bird Review, to 84:138-150). The NOU's official state list of birds (461 species as of 2017) is based on actual specimen evidence or some other convincing basis of each species' proven occurrence in the state. That list includes 337 "regular" species, 29 "casual" species, 90 "accidental" species, and 5 extinct or extirpated species. In this edition I have classified 368 of the 461 species of Nebraska birds as ranging in relative frequency of occurrence as "abundant" to "rare." There are also 61 species considered to be of "accidental" occurrence, having been reliably reported in Nebraska no more than five times, 20 that are considered "extremely rare" or "very rare," if reported from six to 25 times. There are also three extinct, four extirpated, and five unsuccessfully introduced species. Thirteen hypothetical species of dubious origin or identification are mentioned parenthetically. The text includes more than 123,000 words, nearly 200 literature references, and 19 pages of drawings and maps.