As Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count and Cornell’s Great Backyard Bird Count are nearing, Emory Libraries has a tool to help you identify birds by sight and sound.
Watercolor of red-winged blackbird by CW Hickcox, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Sciences department, Emory University
The university-wide subscription to the Birds of North America (BNA) Online is the most comprehensive reference on breeding birds and their life histories. BNA Online is regularly updating information on the over 716 species of breeding birds in the USA and Canada. The site includes species maps, photographs and videos of bird songs and calls, plumages, behaviors, habitat, nests, eggs and more.
BNA is produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Ornithologists’ Union with support from the National Science Foundation. 
Originally, BNA was first compiled in 2002 as an 18-volume set entitled The Birds of North America: Life Histories of the 21sth Century by the American Ornithologists’ Union and the Academy of Natural Sciences and editor Alan Poole.
To learn more about Citizen Science programs and those especially for birders, visit
National Wildlife Federation’s Introduction to Citizen Science & Citizen Naturalist programs http://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Conservation/Citizen-Science.aspx
Great Backyard Bird Count http://gbbc.birdcount.org/
Christmas Bird Count http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count
Cornell Lab Citizen Science Blog http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citsci/