Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton Field Guides) [Paperback]

Craig Robson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2005 | Series: Princeton Field Guides

This concise, updated edition of the award-winning A Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton, 2000) is the most comprehensive, compact guide to this magnificent bird-rich region. It is a complete field and reference guide to the birds of Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. It also covers a wide range of species found in the Indian subcontinent, China, Taiwan, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo, and the Philippines.

• More than 140 full-color plates
• All 1,270 species covered in detail
• Up-to-date text covers the identification, voice, habitat, behavior, and range of all the region's species and distinctive subspecies
• Complete coverage of some fifteen Southeast Asian countries and regions

Editorial Reviews

Review

One of the best bird field guides ever published. -- Oriental Bird Club Bulletin

This guide is a magnificent achievement, regionally without peer, and clearly the essential guide for future visitors to the region. -- World Birdwatch, journal of BirdlLife International

About the Author

Craig Robson, a world-renowned expert on Asian birds, was a founding member of the Oriental Bird Club in the UK and has served on its various committees. He leads tours for Birdquest, one of Europe's premier bird tour companies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (August 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691124353
• ISBN-13: 978-0691124353
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Ornithology
  • #60 in Books > Travel > Asia > Southeast

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best that you can get isn't perfect..., November 21, 2007

By 

Jeffrey RR Skrentny "JRR Skrentny" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton Field Guides) (Paperback)

I purchased Birds of SE Asia for some birding days I would have in Singapore in November of 2007. Everyone I asked said it was the best you could find...and my search results indicate they are correct, you can not find a better bird guide for this part of the world than Robson's. BUT, and I mean this only for those of you who will seriously digest this book and use it as a field guide as intensely as I did for my two days in the field, it is not perfect. Sure it covers 1270 species, but I only wanted to know about 400 of them in Singapore. Yes, I am sure that Robson used the most up to date information he had at the time of publication, but for the Singapore birds he just didn't have it all right, including some basic scarcity ratings, and in one case the bird plate just wasn't that accurate a plate.

Still, all things being equal, for example NO GUIDE, Robson's guide is a heroic effort to cover a great deal of territory and almost 1300 birds in a FIELD GUIDE sized book. Here he succeeded wonderfully, and I was able to make most of the needed IDs of the 70 or so species I found in 2 days with his guide book.

Until there is something more country specific, I don't think you can find a better guide book for this area of the world...assuming that specific guides for countries don't become available soon, I hope that the author will update his work and include the appropriate corrections soon.

If you are heading to SE Asia and hope to do some birding, don't leave home without it.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perfect Field Guide, March 17, 2007

By 

Michele Patterson (Long Beach CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton Field Guides) (Paperback)

This edition is the first quality guide to the birds of Southeast Asia that is easily portable. The original hardback version of Robson's book is too bulky and heavy to be handy in the field. I have used the hardback version for six years and found myself making notes in the field then researching the guide only when I returned to my hotel. I look forward to being able to carry the book with me on most walks. Another vast improvement in the new guide is that the bird descriptions are now on the page facing the illustrations. No more need to thumb back and forth between picture and text. This is the book I've been waiting for!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton Field Guides), March 9, 2007

By 

Margaret S. Opengari (Pearisburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton Field Guides) (Paperback)

I purchased this guide for a combined trip to Borneo and Peninsula Malaysia. I had a copy of the pocket guide to the Birds of Borneo and was looking for a guide to cover some of the birds that were not pictured in the small Borneo book as well as the Birds of Peninsula Malaysia. For this purpose I was pleased. A few endmic Borneo birds were of course not included but most were included.

As for the stand alone qualities of Birds of Southeast Asia, this is well designed for use in the field. It is compact with a plastic cover and contains an amazing amount of information for its size. The pictures are high quality and when the scale changes on a page, it is noted next to the picture. The inside cover has small pictures of a representative of each family with the starting page # for that family. Species descriptions, including many juveniles & females, voice, range and time of year are included opposite the pictures.
I am writing this prior to my trip so the true test, how many lifers are gleaned from its use, is yet to come.