It helps to have list of local birds you can hope to see when you go birding. You can obtain lists from several sources. A list of all Birds of Maryland and Birds of District of Columbia, compiled by MOS, are available online in the form of checklists, and may be downloaded and printed on your personal computer. It was designed to be printed two-sided on 8.5″ X 11″ paper, flipping on the short edge.

Another source might be your local MOS chapter.  They may even have links to popular birding spots in their county for which they’ve compiled a list. Another excellent source is eBird. At eBird you can narrow your search to individual parks, for example, and specify time of year or species, then print your candidate list. eBird also has a smartphone app that will automatically download a list for your area and help you manage it, as well as upload to the eBird website.

And if you’re birding at one of the sites listed in the Birder’s Guide to Maryland & DC you’ll find an eBird link that will bring up the latest bird list for that site. You can then tailor by one or more years and month, and then print it as mentioned above.

You also may want to refer to The Yellowbook, a booklet showing abundance of each Maryland species as a function of time throughout the year, along with codes for region of the state and type of habitat.

The MOS Records Committee compiles the official lists of Maryland birds and District of Columbia birds. You may want to review their latest lists.