Birds of Shenandoah National Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A Field Guide

This is a compact, current, easy-to-use field guide that identifies 336 species of birds that have been reported from in and near the Blue Ridge in North Carolina and Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. The guide applies to one of the most beautiful and biologically rich regions of eastern North America, it includes only those species of birds that will be found in the region, and it can be used with comfort, confidence, and pleasure by casual and beginning observers as well as those with more extensive experience.

Dr. Ernest P. Edwards is an ornithologist with wide experience in teaching, research, administration, and publication. His formal higher education took place at the University of Virginia (B.A. in Biology, 1940) and Cornell University (M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1949), and he served in the US Army during World War II and the Korean War. Early in his career, Dr. Edwards taught at the University of Kentucky and the University of the Pacific, served as Associate Director of the Houston Museum of Natural History, lectured for the National Audubon Society, and led bird-watching tours to Mexico — the last activity leading to the publication of his first book Finding Birds in Mexico, in 1955.

In 1965, Dr. Edwards returned to the East Coast when he joined the faculty at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, a position he held for 25 years and during which time he taught many courses in the natural sciences and wrote and published several books on ornithology. Since his retirement from Sweet Briar in 1990 as Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology, Dr. Edwards has remained active in travel, research, and writing.