Customer Reviews

Field Guide to the Birds of the Atla: (Helm Field Guides)

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To begin with, I expected a smaller, handy and portable guide. This one, is big, and heavy, even more if you consider the small range that covers this guide. The plates are correct, but nowadays there are a few guides covering these species that do much, much better. I don't like the disposition either. The information about identification, habitat and else, is separated from the plates, what is always very annoying. It lacks even distribution maps, what should be pretty easy to do on the range covered. The maps are substituted by lists with the species and its distribution, separated in the different archipelagos. Advice, stick with your collins guide, Birds of Europe and north of Africa if you want an identification guide of Macaronesia. This guide adds little valuable information and it works poorly in the field.

Basics: 2006, 1st edition, softcover, 300 pages, 69 color plates, 100+ b&w illustrations, 500 species, no range maps

First, to clarify the geography of this book: Only the four northern Atlantic island chains known collectively as Macaronesia (not Macro or Micro) are covered by this book. These are the Canary, Madeira, Azores, and Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic which range between Portugal south to Senegal of northwest Africa.

This is the only complete field guide to cover these island groups in the northeast Atlantic. All birds, both residents and vagrants, are covered in the plates and text. The real treat of these plates is the many endemic species and subspecies found on these islands. All are very well illustrated. Where appropriate, the birds are illustrated to show plumage differences between gender, age, season, and subspecies. I was happy to see five different illustrations for the African Blue Tit. The five illustrations cover the four different subspecies that are debatedly each a good species.

The artwork is good with good color reproduction. Some of the birds are drawn a little small, such as the waxbills, finches, kinglets and tits. As an example, the plate with the waxbills and finches contains 26 different individuals.

The text is presented in two formats. First, a very brief physical description is shown across from the plate. Letter codes also indicate on which islands the birds may be found. Second, the latter half of the book gives longer species accounts for each bird. The accounts are of variable length (2-7 paragraphs) outlining identification, voice, range, and status. Since this is meant to be an identificaiton guide, there is little to no natural history included.

There are two useful appendices containing checklists for each of the four island groups. One appendix has a full list for each island group. The list contains a separate column for each individual island within the community. The second appendix has a similar checklist for each island group, but for only the endemic species and subspecies.

If you visit any of these four islands groups for birding, this book will be essential. Only a couple of other books are available and these cover only one island group.

I've listed several related books below...

1) Las Aves De Las Islas Canarias by Martin/Lorenzo

2) Las Aves De Canarias by Perez Padron

5) Guia De La Aves De Las Islas Canarias by Moreno

4) Birds of the Atlantic islands: Vol 1-4 by Bannerman

5) The Birds of the Cape Verde Islands by Hazevoet

6) Madeira's Natural History in a Nutshell by Sziemer

This book is exactly what I thought it would be. Can't wait to use it on LaPalma, CI,

This book is very impressive and has great illustrations. It is packed with lots of information but is not overwhelming. After actually using it in the Azores, I can say that I am still a big fan of this book. The illustrations are excellent, I would say better that almost ANY field guide I have ever seen or used. The only drawback is the weight is slightly heavy for a field guide. But don't let that stop you from buying this great book! Even if you are planning a trip to mainland Europe, this book would be a great resource for most parts of Europe. Buy it!