Birds of Island Beach State Park in Print

     Over a year ago I started a project to document all the birds recorded at my favorite spot, Island Beach State Park in Ocean County, NJ.  I wanted it to be in book form so that my work would be available to the public.  Since I wanted to be in full control of the project, and work with my own timeline, I chose to use one of the self publishing companies available on the internet.  I chose to format the book as a summary account of all the birds found at the park, instead of a field guide.  I used available data from several sources, such as eBird, New Jersey Birds Record Committee and historic bird banding records.  When all the research was done, the final tally was 350 full species for the park.
Front and back covers.  © S. Weiss

The birds were presented in the latest taxonomical order with both common and scientific names.  Each bird’s abundance is described, such as common, scarce, rare, historical, etc.  The most likely place within the park to find most of the birds and/or season of the year that they are around is mentioned.  All the information is referenced, and all the birds are indexed.  I chose July 1, 2023 as the cutoff date for all this information, otherwise updating such information would never end.  This also gave me a chance to include the park’s,  and the state’s, newest bird, a black-whiskered vireo seen this past May. 
Pages from Table of Contents and Index.  © S. Weiss

I included a color photograph for each bird, just for illustrative purposes.  I scoured my own photo collection and put one of the best photos I had to represent each bird.  There are a few photos that I wish were better, but they were the best available.  Of the 350 species, I had photos for 331 of them.  This is where friends really came through.  I sent friends a list of the birds of which I lacked photos, asking if anyone could help me out.  Their responses were quick and enthusiastic.  Late photos of my own that I included were my first Tennessee warbler taken at the park in October, and a Sabine’s gull I took out in Washington State in September.  
One of content pages.  © S. Weiss

Over the months the book took shape, constantly being tweaked.  I had a friend who is among the top birders in the state review the content and give me feedback.  I proofread the book as it was laid out on the computer dozens and dozens of times.  When I thought, “This is just right,” I ordered my pre-sale copy and still found some minor errors.  I would like to have had the interior pages printed on glossy paper, but wanted to keep the cost reasonable and appealing.  So with the final revision completed and uploaded to the publishing website, Birds of Island Beach State Park is now publicly available at the bookstore at LuLu.com, or at:  https://www.lulu.com/shop/steven-a-weiss/birds-of-island-beach-state-park/paperback/product-eg79gm.html?q=birds+of+island+beach&page=1&pageSize=4

I hope it is useful for anyone who checks it out, as well as enjoyed.

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