Partners for Parks Helps Groundbreaking Book About Local Birds Take Flight

Partners for Parks is delighted to donate “seed money” for birds in our area, but it won’t feed them. Not directly, anyway.

Birds of the Central Carolinas: Firsthand Accounts from the Civil War Era to Today is a labor of love written by Donald Seriff and illustrated by Leigh Anne Carter, who both work at Mecklenburg County Park & Recreation Department. The 600-page book is published in cooperation with Mecklenburg Audubon, and with support from Partners for Parks. 

Our organization helped fund the editing and publishing of a first-of-its-kind book about birds who live in and visit the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina.  

Birds of the Central Carolinas includes a research history of birds that have never before been compiled and published in a single source. It includes more than 400 photos and 312 illustrations of more than 300 of birds, and partial accounts of 60 more. More than just a field guide, it follows the history of many of these species over the last 150 years in our area.

“It’s an interesting book full of great information,” crowed Al Brown, Treasurer of Partners for Parks. “We’re proud to be part of such a comprehensive project.”

Other bird enthusiasts were just as complimentary.

“Once I started reading the book I couldn’t put it down,” says Ken Kneidel, Past President of Mecklenburg Audubon. 

“I will recommend that all my birding friends snap up copies as soon as possible,” echoes William Rogers, Ph. D, Professor of Biology at Winthrop University.

Published in the spring of 2018, Birds of the Central Carolinas has won the national award for Outstanding Educational Materials at the 2018 Alliance of Natural Resources Outreach and Service Programs (ANROSP) Annual Conference.  

This book was funded entirely by donations, including a $10,550 grand from Partners for Parks. All money raised will be used for conservation and research in the Carolina Piedmont. Birds of the Central Carolinas costs $45 and is available at Mecklenburg Audubon monthly meetings, or can be mailed with the cost shipping. It is also available at Wing Haven gardens, and online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.