Customer Reviews

A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Comstock books)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best book for birding in Costa Rica but it is far too big and heavy to be an ideal field guide. A pro birding guide in CR suggested buying the book, removing the illustrations and having them bound for use in the field. Guides at La Selva have the plates laminated in plastic and spiral bound for easy carrying. Since it is a expensive field guide I'd suggest buying a protective cover for it. If you don't want to carry the weight, Peterson's Birds of Mexico has many of the birds you will see in Costa Rica.

Having lived in Costa Rica since prior to the publication of "the book," I can attest to what a joy it is to have all the bird life under one cover, so to speak. (We used to have to tote 3 different volumes into the field!) Still, some find this one book too much to be burdened with and (as another reviewer has mentioned) pull out the colored plates from the book's center. I wholeheartedly recommend this procedure, but with one difference: take the text into the field and leave the plates at home (no offense, Dana). While the paintings are of passable quality, the information contained in the text is nothing short of superlative. No one would ever be able to distinguish between, let's say, a Rufous Piha and a Rufous Mourner by looking at the illustrations. The text, however, gives some very useful pointers, including vocalizations, that just might solve your identification quandary. But the bottom line is, if you're going birding in Costa Rica, don't leave home without it.

Just back from 2 week guided tour to Costa Rica. This was a tour featured as "Nature's Museum" and led by a trained biologist that was good on bird ID, though his time was demanded more for logistics and keeping everyone of our 26 tourists happy by hitting the majors such as monkeys, butterflys, and birds like Quetzels, Motmots, and Toucans. I found the Stiles and Skutch guide to be most helpful. Recommend that a new user, read all of the general information just prior to a visit to the country. Also read in advance, the descriptions of bird families and look thru the plates to get a feel for birds you might see. Then when in the field, you can easily scan the plates, and check out the narrative descriptions, including their habits and ranges. Though this was not a bird trip, we did pick up 150 species that we felt comfortable on ID and perhaps a dozen unknowns mostly because of only flighting glimpes. About half were first called out by the local guides and the others by ourselves with help of the book. I find this book's info. on bird ranges to be most useful especially for neotropical migrants for which our North American guides generally ignore wintering areas south of US. One note of caution, is that the color plates aren't always perfect, for instance the tree swallow is too green, the palm tanager a bit too drab, and variants are not shown. Looks like there is room for a next generation "Sibleyian" guide to birds in central America.

If you have a more casual interest in birds, you may be more happy with "A Pocket Wildlife Guide" for Costa Rica, published by Rainforests Pub.,... commonly available locally in Costa Rica. It has nice color plates of common birds, butterflys, reptiles, and mammals.

This is the best bird book currently available for birding in Costa Rica. I consider it a must-have. A better field guide is currently being written, but it'll be a couple more years before it's available.

It's a good guide, but here are my criticisms: This book is a bit too big for a field guide. The drawings of the birds are separate from descriptions and range information. Some of the drawings aren't accurate - check the descriptions for a good ID. If you're going far north or south, you may want to supplement with books on Panamanian and Nicaraguan birds, since this guide doesn't include rare migrants. The organization uses a slightly different taxonomic order than North American field guides.

A guide with everything you'd possibly wish for. The only thing left after having read this book is go out and watch them, and use this book to easily identify them. You can tell the good (human) guides in Costa Rica from the bad guides by the use they make of this book: bad guides claim they don't need it; good guides now you can't do without it!

I lived in Costa Rica for several months over a couple of years while conducting research in Parque Nacional Tampanti. The book is good but a new edition is needed. I agree with several of the other reviewers that the size of the book is cumbersome but when you're birding in a country with 800+ bird species you should expect a big book. Here are my suggestions:

--If you are in a group make sure at least one person has the entire book. Everyone else can just carry plates. If you are a serious birder you will need to reference information such as habitat, voice and range that are only in the text section of the book to help solidify your identifications.

--At least one other reviewer mentioned bringing another field guide for additional information. IT IS A MUST. There is nothing more frustrating then having a bird sit in front of you and you can't match it to the illustrations in the book. Most of you know that plumage variation occurs from individual to individual. If you only have one guide you only have one illustrated point of view. Also, some plates in the guide are sub par. For example, the raptors section is not very good. To adjust for some poor plates I also carry the plates to "A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America" (Howell and Webb). Their plates are much better.

--Expect to get your book dirty (plastic bags or not). If you spend any amount of time in the forest you will eventually get caught out in the rain. Don't fight it and go running for cover. If you binoculars can handle it, stay out and keep birding and have a good time. Some of my best birding experiences in Costa Rica have been in complete downpours. They don't normally last long and it is hard to get the `true' rainforest experience without standing in the rain.

-- I also recommend that you read `The Neotropical Companion' by Kricher before you visit the tropics. I read the book before almost every trip to the tropics. It is packed with valuable information which will help you understand species distribution patterns and general behavior.

Also, check out Tampanti National Park. It has over 400+ species and is in a nice area. The nearby town of Orosi (great little town) has nice (cheap) accommodations such as Montana Linda with lots of local `flavor'. It's a hostel and language school. The town also has nice restaurants, internet and some decent birding in the area for evenings when you're not at Tampanti.

Cheers

Even if you're a rookie birdwatcher like me, make sure this book is always within reach. No matter where you go in Costa Rica, night or day, walking through a rain forest or driving down a dirt road, there are birds to be seen. Most you've never seen before and most can be identified with this book. (P.S. Wear your binoculars all the time!)

A great field guide! After 8 days, my guide was well worn. The "human type" guides that we went birding with on two occasions used the same field guide. They would tell me what plate to go to, from memory, to find the birds we were viewing. My husband, a novice birder, ID'd as many birds as I did using this book. The printed information on the birds was excellent also, as it clinched several ID's.

This is a must-have for any serious birder. Our professional birding guides knew the plate number and position of each bird on the plate, so this book is the standard used by all. This includes researchers in the biological stations. Many serious Costa Rican birders and others removed the plates so they would not have to lug around the entire book.The next time I go, I will do the same. You may want to purchase a new one for reference and remove the pages in another, perhaps a used tattered copy, so you can carry the plates with you. I suggest placing them in some kind of waterproof bag, especially if you plan to be on the Carribean slope in the rain or cloud forest.
If you're not a birder they sell a nice laminated fold out bird reference for about $10 in every souvenir shop in the parks.

Even though not all the birds were pictured on the plates in the book, I didn't run into any birds that were missed. The plates were generally of an acceptable quality and the write-up on each species was excellent. It was about time Costa Rica, a birding mecca for all serious birders, had its own field guide. The book was great and Costa Rica was even better! Together, they were excellent. One suggestion would have been to have a simple code with the plates to indicate which of the species (flycatchers in particular) were likely to occur only in one particular location (ie) upper Pacific Slope. With the help of the tour guides, this book was excellent.