Version 3.9 was released on July 31, 2007. Thayer Birding Software and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have joined forces to create the ultimate CD for birders. The Thayer’s Guide to Birds of North America v3.9 features all 925 birds seen in the U.S. or Canada (excluding Hawaii). This incredible Windows-based CD-ROM includes 2,788 color photos and songs for 708 species. 90 video clips are also included. This CD can help you identify unfamiliar birds. Simply select the color, size, habitat, location or sound of your bird and the program will show you everything that matches your description! Also included are 700 quizzes arranged into “Birding Hot Spots”, “Christmas Bird Counts”, Favorite Birds” and more. Set the level at Easy or crank it all the way up to Difficult. Select Multiple Choice, Fill-in-the-blank, Flash Card or “Pick One” quizzes. This CD also includes a listing and recordkeeping program to help you remember the birds you have seen. With version 3.9, you can also share Custom Lists with your friends, download songs and photos to an iPod for your own personal use and add your own comments and photos for each bird. New colorful icons make it very easy to use the CD. System Requirements: Windows 2000, XP or Vista; Pentium 4 processor or equivalent; 512 MB RAM; CD-ROM drive; 1 Gig on hard drive; plus hardware and software required to support multimedia applications. Some features of this CD-ROM require an Internet connection.
Customer Review: Thayer Guide to Birds of North America v.3.9
I was able to try the software at a friend’s house a few years ago and enjoyed the Petey the Parrot feature that pronounced Latin nomenclature. User friendly. There are good searching and cross-referencing features. The library of species is more extensive than any book I’ve seen. I like that there is geographic distribution data, population information and song files. It is so much easier to listen to a song file than read “two wee” in a field guide and get the same effect of information. This software helps with research presentations. The quizzes are great too. I like that the photos available for each species carry mulitple view whenever possible. I think in the absence of photos, drawings could have been included to cover the gap, especially since females are usually the gap and comprise 50% of the species population, so this is important information. So far that is the only short-coming I have noticed. Buy from here…