Customer Reviews

Birds of Northern South America: An Identification Guide, Volume 2: Plates and Maps

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The first question most potential buyers of this book might ask is just what is the author's definition of "Northern South America" as this qualifies the utility of the book? On page 10 of the guide there is a political map showing the coverage of the book. Northern South America is from a line just south of Chiclayo, Peru (therefore including the great destination Abra Patricia) and extending across the continent south of the Amazon River to about 47 degrees east in Brazil (near the city of Araguaina in the state of Tocantins) and then north to the eastern terminus of the Amazon on the Atlantic Coast. The northern boundry extends to Panama (Azuero Penninsula) and the islands north of Colombia and Venezuela (Aruba, Curacao to Trinidad and Tobago.)

There are an incredible 2,308 species included in the guide with 6,400 images on 306 color plates according to the back cover. The illustrations (done by author Robin Restall) are excellent and a special feature of this book is the inclusion of depictions of most known subspecies along with male, female and juvenile plumages.

This book joins the ranks of the best field guides for South America including Birds of Ecuador, and Birds of Peru (I haven't seen the new Venezuela guide yet) and like these books has only minor flaws. The Ecuador book is excellent and mainly is just too large for the field and the Peru book which is another great accomplishment has somewhat too large illustrations that could have been condensed. Both of these books have considerable information regarding their depicted species, the Peru book on the opposite page and the Ecuador book on a page referred to in the text. This book has almost no text and you would have to purchase the companion volume. What is included are excellent range maps and very brief comments about the birds habitat preference. For example the Roraiman Antwren on plate 163 has this mention: "usually among topmost leaves of upper canopy may sortie out after a flushed insect". Each species is tagged with a mark keying in an identifying feature.

Rangemaps are bicolored (green for terrestrial ranges, blue for coastal ranges) and are on the same or opposite page of the illustrations for easy reference. Maps include the size of the bird, a key for altitude range (eg LT= lower tropical, sea level to 800-900m), status (resident/migrant), abundance and threat status (CR critical, EN endangered etc.).

Unlike the new Princeton Guide for Birds of Central America and Mexico this book is too large to easily slip into a pocket for field birding and you would want to have the companion guide (or another more text filled book) back in the car or lodge to refer to during a trip. Despite this and the brief amount of text this is still an excellent addition to the guides for South American birds and works for many areas that until now had no field guide. If you could only have one guide for Northern South America this should be the one.

This book became available a year ago approximately in April 2007.. I arrived to Venezuela to the Neotropical Ornitholgoical Congress with it in my backpack, and sure it was useful... I took it to the Orinoco river delta and to the Gran Sabana/La Escalera endemics area... we (some people from Colombia, Argentina, Finland, Venezuela, Costa Rica, etc) were birding thoroughly and it was the right book to have handy... never "lost" a species and was very cool having all ssp and variation illustrated... of course, the book has mistakes and errors, but if you have been birding for some time and not a "juts-started birding yesterday" person, this book is going to be your perfect companion in the field !!!

This work is an exemplary achievement. Seldom have I seen such a beautifully illustrated guide that makes me want to jump up and down with enthusiasm. Not only are all the birds illustrated hansomely and meticulously illustrated, but multiple plumage variations are depicted full scale along side and juvenile plumages are also depicted. Also migrants from North America are given equal standing with the residents, and not shunted to the back of the book or illustrated in black and white. One of my biggest criticisms of many other guides is that they employ multiple illustrators with varying degrees of competency. Having one illustrator is an advantage, and one like Robin Redstall who knows and loves the birds he depicts is the best kind. This book is the next best thing to having private access to a great research collection!

Excellent resource for birders - even if too large to be a "field book". Beautiful illustrations and good info on range of habitats. Amazon sent book very quickly and I appreciated "no shipping fee" promotion.

Having no experience with South American birds, I cannot speak authoritatively to whether this book is accurate in its coverage. However, it certainly seems comprehensive, and the plates are very good, with separate images for most known plumages of each bird. Unfortunately the book is intended to cover only those species occurring in the countries north of Brazil, so for travelers to the Brazilian Amazon - such as myself - it must be used in tandem with other works.

One minor criticism is that the images on the plates are rarely arranged in the same order as the short blurbs and range maps on the facing page, which makes it often a surprisingly difficult task to hunt down the image associated with the blurb or map you have just examined.

Overall, though, a very clear and useful work, and a welcome product to birders who have been waiting for a good field guide for this enormously diverse avifauna.

Volume 2 is just the plates that are like the ones in the middle of the Ecuador guide. Don't think though that you are getting a small guide. It is a fat--656 pages--just plates. It does include maps though too of the ranges of the birds next to the birds and a notation of commonality. It covers 2300 species. Many have a half dozen different drawings of various subspecies and sexes. They might just possibly have over done that just a tad. My main complain is that the index of scientific names is mixed with the common names, not have favorite index layout.

For those that want a little description of the bird, you will have to purchase vol 1 also.

See my review for the set of both volumes. This is the Plates & Maps volume, to be regarded as the true field guide of the two. The other volume (Species Accounts) should be within easy reach too, e.g. in the bag of your companion!