Just what is that funny-looking bird with the long beak? Here are some excellent online field guides to the flora and fauna (that's plants and animals, to nonscientists!) of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.
The Chesapeake Bay Program Bay Field Guide is very useful if you don't know an organism's name. It lets you search by type of organism or by type of habitat, with pictures to select by, and includes useful info about life cycles, diet, and more.
You may also want to take a look at the Chesapeake Bay Program: Animals and Plants page for more information and photos of Bay life.
The MD Department of Natural Resources Bay Life Guide allows you to search by type of organism and then organism name.
The MD Dept of Natural Resources Fish Facts guide is all fish! It lets you search by clicking on pictures or names of common Bay area fish species.
Not quite a field guide... photos of plants found in the lawn at RCHS, collected by Honors Ecology.
Other useful sites:
The US Fish and Wildlife Services Endangered Species Program is searchable by state or region, and gives important info about threats to these organisms. The USFWS Chesapeake Bay Field Program has a list of endangered species that are found in the Bay ecosystem.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List is is widely considered to be the most objective and authoritative system for classifying species in terms of the risk of extinction. This database is also searchable, and inlcudes life history, recovery plans, etc.
The US Geological Survey has a list of invasive and exotic/ introduced species documented in Virginia waters.
