Customer Reviews

Voices of Costa Rican Birds: Caribbean Slope

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This is one of the better cd sets available on birds of Central and South America. There are two cds, covering 220 birds- available as of this writing from Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithollgy for $29.95.

CD 1 covers tinamous, raptors, doves, parrots, owls, hummingbirds, trogons, motmots, barbets, woodpeckers, foliage-gleaners, and antbirds.

CD 2 covers antbirds, becards, manakins, wrens, thrushes, warblers, caciques, oropendolas, euphonias, tanagers, grosbeaks and sparrows.

Since there is much variety, songs and calls do not become monotonous as in other Cornell releases featuring only antbirds, or only parrots. The wren family comes across as having the most consistently beautiful voices in this collection.

Here are the (for me) outstanding voices of the set:

Black-breasted Wood-Quail, Gray-breasted Crake, Red-lored Parrot, Common Potoo, Rufous Motmot, Gray-throated Leaftosser, Black-chested Jay, Plain Wren, Stripe-breasted Wren, Bay Wren, Black-throated Wren, Gray-breasted Wood-Wren, Song Wren, Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush, Chestnut-headed Oropendola - and the piece de resistance, the Montezuma Oropendola.

If you are planning a trip to Costa Rica, the set is indispensible. For sheer pleasure though, it is a delight to listen in wonder at the variety of voices in this tropical setting. Recommended for ornithologists, travelers and bird lovers in general.

Want to train yourself to recognize the 25% of the Costa Rican birds species by its voices? Then, you have to listen both CD's. I heard them few months ago when my fauna teacher put emphasis in the bird identification (I'm a forestry student --Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica). Sometimes, when you are in a dense forest or thicket you can only hear the birds, so, you need a non-visual way to identify them....and here it is. I bought the "Indicator Birds of the Costa Rican Cloud Forest" (from the same Laboratory of Ornithilogy) and I hear it in my house to train my ears in the identification of non common birds.

Buy it, I'm gonna buy it too.

I've been to Costa Rica on several trips. If you are a nature person, or birder that is interested in nature sounds, and knowing what they are, then this tape is indispensible. There is more information available on this title from tinkfrog.com, or any websearch of the title. These CDs cover several vocalization types for many of the over 220 species, call, songs, drumming of woodpeckers. With this and the voice descriptions in the field guide, you've a chance at recognizing, and finding more birds.

For a location that gets a lot of birders there is very little in the way of recordings available for Costa Rica. Don't let the title fool you, a great number of the birds presented on this set are also on the Pacific Slope. The quality of the recordings is very good, and over two-hundred species are resented. I found it very helpful in learning the calls of the birds of Costa Rica