Customer Reviews

A Guide to the Birds and Mammals of Coastal Patagonia

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

 

 

Harris' knowledge and research, coupled with an excellent artistic hand made this book a critical element to my Patagonian journey. Most notably, his plates are exceptional, and although not nearly as extensive, they are in most cases far superior to the recently released Collins Illustrated Checklist covering birds in the same region. Harris also includes solid notes on each species, sometimes going into very good depth. One frustration was the limits of Harris' coverage: the book is very much "coastal" Patagonia, and omits several species such as Andean Condors, or the beavers and woodpeckers of the Nothofagus forests. Know that Harris specifically covers Argentine Patagonia from Peninsula Valdes to Tierra del Fuego. Despite this constraint, the book aided me in identifying many species throughout inland Chile and the Chilean seaboard. Overall the guide made for a phenomenal travel companion.

Highly recommended for anyone traveling to Patagonia. The drawings are exemplary in comparison to any other available field guides to the region, particularly when used in combination with the de La Pena and Rumboll guide 'Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica'. I found Harris's illustrations and detailed descriptions to be much more extensive and truer to color and features than de La Pena. Particularly interesting was the inclusion of line drawings of mammal skeletons, which were much more common in the region than I ever imagined, and these drawings were extremely helpful in identification. However, a complementary bird guide is necessary when traveling south to the Beagle Channel, and toward the Andes, the route most vistors to Patagonia take. If you are limited to only one guide to the region, bring this one. If you have room for two, include de La Pena.

This book is a great field guide to the area. The color plates are well drawn and are accurate. Very useful for identifying the species of this region.

The positive:
Outstanding illustrations done with love and care. This is in itself reason enough to buy the book and why I cannot bring myself to give this book a rating under four stars.
Good detail level for an amateur.
The negative:
The title is misleading. It should have been "A Guide to the birds and Mammals of *Argentinian* Coastal Patagonia"! The book correctly identifies Patagonia as being spread between Chile and Argentina, yet the species from coastal Chilean Patagonia are omitted. Fortunately there is enough overlap to cover most everything, but one misses such important species such as the Andean condor, the choroyes (SLENDER-BILLED PARAKEETs) and the torrent duck (Merganetta armata armata). That was only on a couple of hours of review of the book.
Finally, the so called Spanish names, are quite local to Argentina. It would be helpful for travelers if the book included the names used in Chile too.
So in summary, the book is wonderful but a bit chauvinistic.

This interesting book is a hybrid in several ways. Its hard covers and size renders it rather awkward as a field guide, but a nice addition to a personal bookshelf. Its dealing with both birds and mammals renders it roughly half interesting to pure ornithologists and to pure mammalogists. Its contents includes descriptions of birds and mammals--both terrestrial and marine--, their status, and ranges, all elements useful for bird- and whale-watchers, but it also provides insightful comments on habitat and behavior, of much interest to academic ecologists. It concentrates on the coastal strip of Patagonia, thus providing a detailed picture of that specific meeting of sea and land, and consequently fails at setting a proper biogeographic context. Its small print throughout is an insult to the tired eyes of birdwatchers and reviewers alike. Although I read the entire book, below I will comment only on the bird part.

The sequence of presentation of birds follows that of Meyer de Schauensee, although with some nomenclatural updates. For each species account there is a serviceable description, a welcome section on typical behaviors (illustrated when deemed necessary), a useful summary of abundance and residential status, a depiction of the distributional range (complemented by rather small maps), and sometimes a note with cues that enable setting apart some species from similar ones. Each account has a referral to a color plate, with rather competent drawing and coloring.

The Description section of each species account is easy to understand, and helps in figuring out the bird's aspect. A very good idea was to provide measurements of birds both in inches and centimeters. There are a few inconsistencies when judging size, such as when two birds of the same measurement are one labeled as "small" and the other as "very small." The Behavior section is a treasure chest of keen natural history observations. I found it useful not only per se, but also in complementing the description of each bird by noting some peculiar habits. The Status and Habitat section is informative, with few misleading exceptions. The Similar Species section is useful, and is used sparingly, thus giving the impression that there should not be much fear of confusing bird species in coastal Patagonia. With respect to the color plates, I like very much the idea of presenting several positions of the bird in focus (e.g., in flight, standing), and --of course-- of males and females when they are different, of adults and subadults when they differ, and of color phases when they happen.

The book ends with an Appendix of accidental records and sightings, and another with recommended reading, the last of which I found most wanting and very idiosyncratic in the number and type of references cited. A Glossary of terms follows, which I also think should have been more thoroughly chosen. A Bibliography comes next, and this one I found deficient and very biased. Without any headers, 251 maps follow, packed at six per page, describing in dark and light gray the ranges of the species discussed in the main text. Unfortunately, one has to go back to page 6 to find the key for the dark and light shading (breeding and non-breeding range, respectively). Finally, a serviceable index picks up English, Latin, and Spanish names of birds, from the ordinal to the species levels.

As I said in the beginning, I am somewhat puzzled at what exactly is the readership intended for this book. It comes midway between a field guide and a commentated species account of birds and mammals of a non-biogeographical region. Having long-term interests on everything that has to do with Patagonia, I will stock this book together with others dealing with that region. But I am reluctant to recommend it as a pocket field guide to the birds of coastal Patagonia. For one thing, it won't fit in any pocket, but for another, it may provide a wonderful filling of details once you know what birds have you watched --back in your tent or guest room. If you are intent on knowing Patagonia and its critters, I think this is a good book for a personal library. If you are a great fan of Patagonia traveling or researching, I recommend you to purchase it.

This book has good quality pictures. Its strong point is the text for each bird and mammal. The real value of having this book on a recent trip to the Patagonia area was our ability to narrow down our choices of birds for identification making the process easier and speedier. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to read about and identify wildlife in the Patagonia area.