Conventionalcoustic surveys of avian communities require expert skills that are rare, particularly during the relatively short singing periods of most temperate North American species. We investigated the use of 2 newly developed omnidirectional microphones for field recordings of forest bird communities. Our study compared richness and abundance of species recorded by field experts and those inferred from simultaneous recordings later analyzed by the same observers. The acoustic recording technique worked well for bird communities associated with the southern boreal mixedwoods of central Saskatchewan and western Ontario. Similarity measures for both presence-absence and abundance data ranged from 83 to 970/o. The acoustic recording technique, particularly in a stereo configuration, could be used to analyze species composition and relative abundance of forest bird communities. Moreover, this approach had numerous advantages, including an archived record of point counts, the use of non-expert field staff to collect recordings, and the standardizationf field data through time

acoustic surveys, forest birds, recording techniques