If you're a birdwatcher, this book will be a delight. If you can already identify the bird but wish to know where else to sight it, then this quick-reference book will be a friend and companion. Birds and Birding on the Mississippi Coast by Judith A. Toups and Jerome A. Jackson is the first book to focus attention on sighting the 357 species of birds known to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It fills a long-standing need for a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to sites in the coastal counties of Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson where this wide range of birds can be located.

Compiled and recorded by two noted birders, this book includes a chapter on the region's past and present ornithological history, accounts of the breeding pattern and distribution of coastal birds, instructive narratives, and maps of dozens of birding sites both on the mainland and the barrier islands. The authors also include a sample itinerary for a field trip, a bird-finding calendar, and an easy-to-use population graph.

This exemplary bird-finding guide will meet the requirements of birders at any level of experience. One chapter entitled "How to Find 50% of Mississippi's Birds in the Shortest Period of Time- A Birding Challenge" offers a first for books of this genre: bird-by-bird, place-by-place, hour-by-hour plans for finding 184 species in one day are spelled out for those birdwatchers driven by the challenge and the demands of a time schedule.

This is the book to take along with your bird-identification guide. It has a complete index of coastal birds and birding sites. With a foreword by Susan R. Drennan and illustrations by Dalton Shourds King, this book is sponsored by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.