Customer Reviews

Birds of Argentina & Uruguay: A Field Guide

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Basics: 2003, 15th edition, softcover, 341 pages, 256 color plates, 975 species, range map for each bird

First published in 1987, this is a brief, concise identification guide covering all of Argentina, Uruguay, and the Falkland Islands.

There are 975 species illustrated, with 3-4 on each page. The majority of the birds are illustrated with multiple views (e.g., perched vs. flying; dorsal vs. ventral) and are accompanied by a very short (20-60 words) physical description of the bird. Only the minimum of text is given to range or habitat - typically only a dozen words.

The artistic quality is decent but not great. The physical structure of the passerines is captured with better realism than other groups such as the gulls, terns, shorebirds, ducks, or petrels. These latter groups have misproportioned wings, bills, chests, or length-to-width ratios. Additionally, similar species (e.g., elaenias, flycatchers, furnarids, etc.) will expose the limitations of the minimal descriptions, small-sized paintings, and average detail.

The color reproduction is much better in the 2003 and later editions than in the books printed up through the mid 1990s. The earlier editions have muted or washed out colors on a thinner paper that allows birds from the other side to bleed through. The new books have sharper edges to the illustrations and are on thicker, glossy paper.

The range maps are tiny at 1x2cm; however, they do effectively illustrate the generalized range of the birds.

Heads-up: This book is the original source used to create four other scaled-down books that use the same paintings, text, and maps. They're mini-clones. These include 1) Aves de Patagonia y Antartida, 2) Guia Para la Identificacion de las Aves de Paraguay, 3) Aves de Costanera Sur y Ciudad de Buenos Aires, and 4) Guia para la Identificacion de las Aves de Iguazu. Owning this one book means you own all four of the other books, other than 60 species added to the newer Paraguayan guide.

If you're going to the Patagonia region, I recommend you also take the Chilean guide by Jaramillo and/or the Birds of Patagonia guide by Couve. The illustrations are superior in Jaramillo's book. Couve's book, even with photographs, is also better. And, text is more useful.

This book is available in both Spanish and English.

I've listed several related books below...
1) Birds of Patagonia, Tierra Del Fuego and Antarctic Peninsula by Couve
2) Birds of Chile by Jaramillo/Burke/Beadle
3) Las Aves de Chile by Martinez/Gonzalez (ISBN 9568426000)
4) Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica by de la Pena
5) Las Aves del Uruguay by Gore/Gepp
6) Birds And Mammals of the Antarctic, Subantartic And Falkland Islands by Todd
7) Falkland Islands Birds by Woods
8) Guide to Birds of the Falkland Islands by Woods

This book served me well in Patagonia, Buenos Aires, and Iguazu Falls.

Weaknesses: It's a bit big and bulky to easily bring along. Substantively, this book could be improved with larger maps and pages comparing similar species. With the biodiversity of this area, perhaps the only solution is to split the book in two.

Strengths: Complete, good index, names of species in both English and Spanish.

Given the alternatives, I'm still quite pleased that I bought and used this book.

Unfortunately there are really no great bird books exclusively for Argentina, although rumor has it there is one in development. The single reference that most people still use is "Birds of Argentina & Uruguay" by Narosky and Yzurieta. The information and range maps are good, but the drawings are fairly poor - although still somewhat useful once you learn how the artist was trying to emphasize different field marks.

Although not country-specific, a birding friend and I lugged around the large but immensely helpful new "Field Guide to the Songbirds of South America: The Passerines" by Ridgely and Tutor. For the non-passerines, we used "Birds of South America: Non-Passerines: Rheas to Woodpeckers" by Erize, Mata and Rumboll. Thus we needed only 2 books, both with excellent plates...but it requires a little more effort to ID the birds since you must avoid looking at those species which are not found in Argentina (or Uruguay, if that's where you're going).

The book is OK. It is nice that it combines one photo and a drawing of each bird. It is also in both Spanish and English, which is good if you have a local guide who is not bilingual. The great bonus is the CD of birds songs included in the package. It also comes with a plastic carrying case, that doesn't look like it will last very long in the field, but is OK for keeping the CD and CD guide together at home.

I use this book as an example of what a field guide could be. Excellent bilingualism, photos and illustrations, good species description, compact size. Excellent.

Don't know if experts agree, but for me it served the purpose well during my 2 weeks in Argentina