Customer Reviews

A Guide to the Birds of Colombia

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is currently the best field guide for the Amazon Basin, and anywhere in Colombia. As the worlds #1 bird nation, this bird guide gives you a good insight into the birds of tropical South America, with national maps and still-adequate recomendations of where to see birds. The guide includes illustrations of most of the birds of Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, all of which lack comprehensive bird guides. Venezuela has a guide, but not as detailed as this one for the Amazon basin. You can't go wrong with this if visiting Neotropical South America in search of birds.

We recently toured the peruvian Amazon rainforest and this book proved invaluable to bird sightings and classifications. We are just casual birders, but found the easy to follow format and concise explanations with exquisite plates very useful. Don't leave home for the South American rainforest without it!

Since no definitive bird guide is available for the Amazon region and Brazil in general, I was forced to choose between this guide and the Birds of Venezuela. I ended up with Hilty and Brown's book by sheer coincidence, and I was not at all disappointed. The text and information is superb throughout, and I was able to identify several species on habitat description alone. For example, the authors clearly describe the preference of many taxa for varzea (seasonally flooded) or terra firme forests, which made a fleeting glimpse more of a certainty, and the range descriptions were invaluable. If I have only one very minor criticism, it is that I have never found plates in black and white particularly helpful, and since several artists were employed, there were differences in visual interpretation in several groups (e.g. the Picidae). However, these are minor detractions from an outstanding volume.

Es un libro que no debe faltar en la biblioteca de ningún ornitólogo. Describe casi la totalidad de especies de aves del país con más especies de aves en el mundo. Excelente.

"A Guide to the Birds of Colombia," by Steven L. Hilty and William L. Brown is mandatory reading for serious field observers. This book treats all of the 1,695 species of resident and migrant birds known to have been reliably recorded in Colombia and on its island posessions of Gorgona and Malpelo prior to 1984.

Moreover, this massive Princeton University Press text (836 pages) includes sixty-nine color and black and white plates by Guy Tudor (one of the most talented living bird illustrators in the world) & others. And before I forget this book includes superb line drawings by Michel Kleinbaum.

I found the sections on Topography, Climate, Vegetation, Habitat Descriptions, and Conservation & National Parks excellent. In addition, the review of Colombian Ornithology and the Range Maps are valuable field observer tools. In conclusion, this is a meticulous text with an expert index that will absolutely fill all the needs of serious field obsevers. Recommended.

Bert Ruiz

I bought the book as I am going on a birding trip to Colombia in 2009. I know that the species list for Colombia is long and just wish that there was someway to have the plates as separate booklet. This book is great for studying before the trip but it way too heavy to think about taking it into the field on an all morning trek. This book weighs over 4 pounds! That said, the book is very through and it is wonderful to have a guide to this country that is so full of wonderful birds and for so many years has been out of bounds for the birder from the USA. At last it is possible to go to see these wonders and after my trip I might add to my review.

Colombia has more than 1700 species of birds that vary in lots of collors, songs and customs. What makes this country an ornithologist paradise. The book really helps to identify those especies and it always comes handy in fieldtrips. Allthough it is always better to see them birds in theire natural habitat.

The plates, maps and illustrations are all in separate sections. Guy Tudors illustrations are excellent but the rest are a mixed bag of quality. Just because you are drawing a bird from a dead museum specimen doesn't mean you can't try to draw them in life like poses. The swallows and woodpeckers/barbets plates are especially poor. I'm guessing that the black and white plates were a cost savings thing from the publisher but they are not very useful. Then there are the species that aren't illustrated in the plates but have line drawings accompanying the text . All species are not illustrated and there are references to other species ( which aren't illustrated ) in the descriptions opposite the plates. It is heavy but I didn't care. Like I said 23 years ago this was probably great but there are too many other good field guides available now to compare it too. Like Ecuador, Peru and Chile. I just came back from 2 months in Colombia and I highly recommend the country. There are still some dangerous areas to avoid but these are well known by the locals.

I live in Medellín, Colombia, South America, I was looking for this book in the spanish edition, but it's hard to find it, so I bouhgt the enlgish version.
This book is an excellent knowledge tool and it will open the eyes of the readers to one of the many wonders we have. A Guide to the Birds of Colombia is just AMAZING. For those who love animals, in special birds, consider buying it, you won't regret it.

I agree with the very positive remarks of other reviewers of "Birds of Columbia" by Hilty & Brown. In my opinion, this book is too heavy to carry into the field. In preparing for an upcoming trip to the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, I am going to remove from the book, the pages with the colored illustrations of the birds. These illustrations will be used as an added resource for bird identification. Will also be taking "All the Birds of Brazil" by Deodato Souza which was very helpful on an earlier trip to the Amazon.