Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to the Birds of Peru

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I applaud the authors' effort to publish a field guide to birds of Peru. Compiling all the information and plates necessary to document all the ~1800 bird species in Peru must be a truly daunting task. I was initially delighted with the clear, crisp plates. Once out in the field with the book, however, my delight turned to disappointment. Most annoying to me is the poor organization of the plates. For example, large-billed and yellow-billed terns are illustrated on plate 9, along with ducks and geese. The remainder of the terns are pictured on plate 23, with the gulls. I found numerous examples such as this. Needless to say, while out in the field and trying to make a quick ID, one is not likely to happen to flip to the duck plate while looking at terns. The species descriptions also leave a lot to be desired. The text is quite sparse, with very little information regarding range, habitat type, behavior, or physical descriptions. There are no descriptions of vocalizations, although references to recordings containing vocalizations are provided for some species. On the positive side, the sparseness of the text means that this guide is light and easy to carry in the field. I'm left with the feeling that this book was rushed to press in order to fill the need for a field guide to this region. I can only hope that future editions will fix some of the errors and fill in details. For the time being, I'll rely on Birds of Colombia or Birds of Ecuador next time I'm in Peru.

Those expecting a Sibley's style field guide with pictures, maps, and bird descriptions all conveniently located on the same page will be disappointed with this guide. Having to go back and forth between picture plates, located in the middle of the volume, and text descriptions at the front or rear of the volume was Herculean pain in the you know what. I got so frustrated with lugging this heavy tomb around the mountains and jungles of Peru that I began to leave it in my lodge and rely more on guides, who also carried the book, for identification. It was easier to focus on the birds for as long as possible and then argue with the guides later over lunch about what we saw.

With that being said, this is the only comprehensive field guide for Peru's 1,800+ species of birds. With it, I saw about 188 different species on 12-day, October 2005 trip to that country. The artwork in the book is generally excellent, and while the descriptions tend to be a bit sparse compared to Sibley's Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, they contain all the key identification features. In defense of Clements and Shany, they had to design a guide for 1,800+ birds whereas Sibley's Eastern North America pocket field guide only covers 650 species. Trying to compare the two, in short, is like comparing apples to oranges. Clements and Shany had to somehow create a guide to one of the ecologically diverse countries in the planet and still keep the production costs low enough for Amazon to offer it for just $60.00 (hint: buy it at Amazon or pay much more for it in Peru if you can even find it). Compromises had to be made, but this is still the only birding book to buy for Peru. All others only focus on small regions of the country such as the Machu Picchu area and are not useful for birders hitting multiple venues. Furthermore, the art in the Clements and Shany guide is much, much better than the art found in the regional publications.

I, for one, am getting weary of new bird books that appear to be written just for listers. How can a book on neotropical birds omit nearly all natural history information. Why are the species' descriptions distilled to just a few sentences for listers? The book comes with a lengthy erratum, apparently the book was printed in Italy, and the Sept 11 tragedy affected the receipt of information by the publishers.
But when there are many errors in a book, one has to wonder what exactly is true, and what is not true, and then respect for the book is dimmed. For example, why was Metropelia melanoptera drawn with an eye ring? When did both genera of flamingos in Peru get lumped into Phoenicopterus? The flamingo bills do not look accurate. The drawing in the front of the book of the life zones of Peru does not match up with the descriptions of the life zones a few pages later. The drawing of the wing used for nomenclature of feathers is apparently an upper wing, but just labeled as an underwing.

The plates, as one reviewer before me noted, are disorganized, and scale does not seem to be adhered to.

I will have to use this book. But please can't we get away from this insane and shallow listing and get out some books that really contribute to the body of ornithological knowledge?

After I saw the draft of this book, and the delay of months for the final publication, I was hoping it was going to be improved a larger scale, but I got the book and after a trip down to Peru a must to admit that it was not as helpful as I was expecting.

Some of the plates quality are not as good as they should be and they are organized in a weird way that I find a little bit confuse. The information was very limited at the point that it was confusing with some of the info of Birds of South America.

I would say this book is a nice try to give some field guide reference for Peru, but a country with such a biodiversity deserved more research and information. Beware that this book might not reach your expectations and if you are considering to go to Peru and you don't mind about weight and bulk I will say take this book and Birds of Ecuador, and Birds of Colombia. I did that and we got a great time. In the meantime we, hardcore birders will be waiting for the next Birds of Peru.

I'm a vetern of 16 years of tropical birding. I have often visited countries for which no field guide is published. In those places I carry 3 or more incredibly bulky bird guides that don't agree on nomenclature and lack any information the local endemics. And those detailed descriptions they contain? There's no reading them when I'm struggling to see every bird in a foraging band - they're for reading over dinner. Birds of Peru is a true field guide, small enough to carry all day, yet quite thorough - it's a godsend for the traveling birder. The disorganization among the plates (typical for tropical bird guides)is a trivial problem as compared to carrying multiple books. Quick! - where do you find the woodcreepers in Tudor's recent and truly elegant "Birds of Venezuela"? (plates 37 & 43)

With all respect to the late Jim Clements, these reviewers are doing shoppers a real disservice by giving glowing reviews to this inferior field guide. The plates range from decent to just ludicrously awful, totally inconsistent and covering only a few plumages. The text is minimal and pathetic, enabling you to identify only a fraction of the individuals you'd enounter. It can't be mentioned in the same breath as the guides to Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Chile. What they are correct about is that it's amazingly small, considering the fabulous avifauna of Peru. Great.

If you're going birding in Peru, you probably have to have it, but you'll have to grit your teeth to pay this much for it. The Colombia or Ecuador books can be found for about half the price and literally 20 times the information, accuracy, and quality. It's more comparable to the Collins Illustrated Checklists available for other parts of the world, though not nearly of the same quality or as comprehensive.

Before a recent trip to Peru I decided to purchase this guide as it is the only one available for Peru and most of the reviews I had read rated it as fair. I found that in the field, the guide was only sometimes helpful, sometimes not. Though it has illustrations or renderings of each species, I found the colors or renderings to be hit and miss. The descriptions were not nearly as thorough as the North American field guides (National Geographic, Audobon, Robbins and Sibley) and the lack of vocalization descriptions was disappointing. In addition the guide is larger than average and quite weighty to carry around. To its credit it does cover the large number of species in the country without being the size of an unabridged dictionary and is a good reference after a day spent in the field. All in all I would say its a fair guide though it can be hard to find and a bit pricey. This guide paired with Birds of Colombia seems a more comprehensive library for birding in Peru than just the Peru guide on its own as both countries share many species in common.

Well, it's good that there is a field guide for Peru, finally. But if you think standards would have gone up since the days of "Birds of Venezuela" or "Birds of Colombia", you are in for some considerable disappointment. For one thing, there is a great difference in the quality of the plates. Some of the plates are truly excellent, while others are simply terrible by today's standards. Many of them look like they have been done in a hurry. Often, the plates look flat and the colors are way too bright without the differentiations one would expect. Of course, the plates will still be helpful for identification of the species. But often, the actual bird looks considerably different. Texts are extremely brief, usually not more than 3 to 5 lines! There is no information about voices except for a number sometimes, referring to a list of recordings. There are no range maps. In sum, if you had hoped for the definitive book on the birds of Peru, keep waiting. This is not it. And since many of the plates in "Birds of Ecuador" are also somewhat disappointing, a really satisfying bird guide for Peru, and its surrounding countries still remains to be written. I understand that the originals of those plates that were done by Barnes looked considerably better. Thus, it seems, there might be a chance for an improved second edition, at least as far as color renditions are concerned. Of course, if you plan to travel to the area now, you do need the present edition, anyway.

Edit January 2010: There has been a fine alternative now for some time. So just get that Princeton guide, as others have said as well.

On a recent trip to Peru, this book was used more than any other field guide. Featuring a wealth of color plates, this book is for carrying in the field and identifying birds, not for learning much about them. The text tells you very little about each species, but other guides such as Birds of Columbia and The Birds of South America series can fill in information once you have identified the bird. Unlike other guides I brought, Birds of Peru was sufficient for identifying almost everything I saw, and though it could be better, it is a must for any birder visiting Peru.

Note: The above comments and review were written prior to the release of the Princeton Field Guide in 2007. Now, I consider the Princeton "Birds of Peru" to be a superior choice for birding in this country.

I have been birding for over 20 years now, and was thrilled to hear that this book was coming out last year. Why? Because I live in the Andes of Peru as a medical missionary. Up until now I have not had much interest in birding, because I cannot identify what I am seeing, and I derive much of my birding pleasure from doing just that. If I am a 'lister' fine. If others are so noble as to take birding pleasure from just seeing birds, good for you, but I am not that way. Thus, this book has made me want to get up early and stomp through the Andes like I used to with my Peterson guide in the plains of Nebraska! Yes, the book has typographical errors, and probably content errors. Yes, some comorants appear incongruously on pages away from other comorants. Yes, some birds on the same plates are not to scale. But I suspect most birders are functioning at a high enough level to overcome these difficulties. For us casual birders it is quite adequate. Considering the vacuum of information existing before this guide, it is a 'must have' for anyone wanting to do some birding in Peru. In the US we are used to high quality available guides. Peru is a poor country. We don't have resources to put out a perfect guide. The author lives in California, so putting out this guide is a remarkable achievement, even if there are errors.