Customer Reviews

A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines

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

 

 

Long needed, a well written and well organised field guide to the birds of the Philippines is finally available. The 72 color plates illustrate all the species of the islands. A nice color distribution map and a short summary of status and occurance, along with identification information is opposite each image.

The book follows the current trend in bird guides of using more than one illustrator. The result, though well done in some other books, often results in a clash of styles, and worse, inconsistancy. This book is illustrated by twelve artists and suffers a little from the latter. The work here is uneven, some of the illustrators being better at capturing the look of the birds than others. And so we have a fair number of illustrations here that betray a lack of knowledge of the form of birds that really shouldn't be in a modern field guide. Not with the high standards achieved in other works, which this book otherwise seems to meet.

The proportions, build, and "facial expression" are not correctly drawn for many species. Experienced birders will have fewer problems translating what they are seeing in their binoculars to what is on the color plate. But beginners and more casual observers may encounter some frustration. For example, the figure of the Citrine Flycatcher on plate 62 resembles the bird only in general color pattern. This species usually appears brighter, and you would not be far wrong if your impression on seeing it, is of an all yellow bird. Also, given the head size, the body should be shown slightly larger and more filled out. The folded wing is incorrectly drawn, as are those of every other bird on the plate.

Although not unique to this guide, many of the species that have olive or yellow-green upperparts are shown too dull and gray. The White-eyes on plate 70 for instance are bright, trim little characters, that may remind North American birders of Wood Warblers, not the dull, misshapen things depicted.

Despite these problems, all of the plates are adequate for identifying the birds, indeed, many are quite well done (e.g. Plate 11 - especially Palawan Peacock-Pheasant - also note very good parrots, kingfishers, hornbills), and the authors and artists have produced a work of lasting value. It certainly will be a useful book in the field or reference on the shelf.

This book is definitely the best field guide yet that came out of press. The plates are good and rendered better. Although, what is lacking is the description of the different races of each bird. Only the nominate race is described and I still have to refer to the book "Philippine Birds" by DuPont for the info lacking in this book. Still waiting for a better one.

I am not an ornithologist. I have been using KENNEDY et al.'s book for several months, and find it all the more useful as I wasn't able to find any other book on Philippine birds. It is frustrating, however, in so far as Tagalog and other indigenous names are not mentioned, or very seldom. For instance I looked for balatitī / bulatitī and lilíw that are often mentioned in my documents, but couldn't find them. Nevertheless, KENNEDY and his team should be encouraged to work on a second, enriched edition, with finder lists in Philippine languages.

I'm using this book in the Philippines and found it to be somewhat unreliable. Many species are listed as uncommon or rare and not really specific to the Philippines but to more of Asia in general. I've seen many birds that are not included in the book and find it fustrating.

The most use I've used the book for is to show children the pictures and make friends when language difference is an obstacle.

I realize that maybe the Philippines is not as bird friendly has other countries, but expected more out of this book. Maybe this is as good as it gets and there is room for much improvement.

I'm still glad I brought it, but just somewhat disappointed in the contents.

Al Menk

Although I agree with Mike Ramos on the quality of the text of this book, I disagree with him concerning plate quality. Often multiple artists can lead to varying quality and lack of uniformity, however in this Philippine guide, which has 12 artists, the plates are surprisingly uniform in layout and generally of very high quality. This book has a winning combination of excellent plates accompanied by clear, concise distributional maps and useful, abbreviated texts all at the users fingertips when the book is opened to a particular plate. There are a few problems with the order and names of authors on the Amazon listing. Robert S. Kennedy is the first author, followed by Pedro C. Gonzales, Edward C. Dickenson Hector C. Miranda, Jr. (his name is incorrect in the Amazon book listing) and Timothy H. Fisher.

This is a well written and illustrated bird guide to all birds known to be found, however rarely, in the Philippines. The illustrations are of high quality, and often show male, female and immature birds, as well as the birds in flight. The associated maps are color coded so that it's easy to distinguish resident, migratory and endemic species. The plates with the illustrations contain a short description of the described bird, including likely habitat and voice. The later part of the book contains a much more detailed account for each species.
It must have been an enormous amount of work to compile this book, since species are mentioned which have only be sighted once or a few times. It serves me well both as a guide to ID birds I had seen in the wild or in captivity in the Philippines, as well as a to teach me about Philippine birds in general.

I must say, this book serves as an excellent guide here for filipino birders, zoology scientists , and students. It's about time that the Philippines got a comprehensive guide on ornithology with well-painted of almost all Philippine birds( the book only misses species discovered after its publication & some feral species) and reliable species information; and as a Filipino, I am proud of such an accomplishment in Philippine zoology.

This is THE book to buy for bird watching in the Philippines. It's the bible. It's complete, well-regarded, and authoritative. None of the other books come close. Too bad the illustrations are from different artists. There are a few plates that look a bit too "cartoony" to me.