Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect Guide when birding in Puerto Rico, May 31, 2001
This is the perfect guide book for birding in Puerto Rico. The photographs, 1340 in all, are brilliant, and the text is detailed and rich in information. The guide itself will easily fit into a pocket or day pack and so when out in the field you will have it at your fingertips. What's unique about this guide is the excellent CD-Rom that comes with it -- this will help you before you go to know what the birds look like, their calls, their behavior and where you can find them once in Puerto Rico. I used the CD-Rom to check out three of my favorite PR birds and was amazed at the numerous and gorgeous pictures, the superb quality of the audio recordings and the information Oberle has reproduced in this book. For instance, regarding the Puerto Rican Tody (one of the 17 PR endemics covered in this guide as well as over 320 other birds), there were a dozen different pictures of the Tody including fabulous close-ups. The information Oberle gives includes identification, voice with audio, habitat, habits, range, status and conservation, taxonomy and related books and articles about the Tody. The Tody is a tiny forest bird with emerald green upperparts and a bright red bill and throat -- everytime I see one I think of a Christmas tree ornament, they are so cute! Oberle discusses in detail what they eat: katydids, grasshoppers, earwings and dragonflies, and discusses as well their foraging techniques. Because Oberle goes into such great detail about ID and habitat/habits, I think this is the best guide to enable one to actually find the birds once in PR. I also checked out the PR Woodpecker and found those pictures, audio and habitat/habits information just as extensive as that about the Tody. I learned that the woodpecker's stiff tail feathers helps it to gain balance while chiseling at tree bark to find its favorite insects, including earwings, beetle larvae and ants. I discovered it occasionally eats scorpions and and lizards! Oberle informs the reader that a good place to find the woodpecker is around the parking lot of the El Portal visitor Center at the El Yungue national park. A third bird that is well covered in both the CD and guide is the Pin-tailed Whydah, which has a most remarkable long tail and perches on wires and branches. I was surprised to learn that the female is like our parasitic cowbird and doesn't build her own nest but drops her eggs in other birds' nests. Oberle has done a splendid job of bringing together in a compact book all the information and photgraphs of birds that you will need when out in the field. Because he cares so much about these birds and the environment, he also has special sections at the begining of the book on conservation efforts, migratory birds that winter in PR, and the extinction issues that face too many birds and other wildlife today in Puerto Rico and elsewhere. To anyone going to Puerto Rico who plans to do some birding, I heartily recommend this book and CD-Rom to you.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Puerto Rico's Best Bird Guide, May 20, 2001
This guide is fantastic! It is well organized, easy to use, full of concise, carefully planned information, and absolutely the best bird book I've ever seen. The photos are extremely well done and very helpful. The descriptions are outstanding: accurate, thorough, and interesting. I have many bird-watchers and long time Audubon members staying here at Villas Margarita, not far from the Caribbean National Forest. They all rave about this book and the fine job Mark Oberle did on it. It is worth every penny! Buy it!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good photo guide, not a complete identification guide, w/CD, July 14, 2008
Basics: 2000, 2nd edition, softcover, 129 pages, 300 color photos of 181 species, CD with 1,300 photos of 335 species, audio clips, no range maps
Compared to other bird books on Puerto Rico or the Caribbean, this book is not formatted to be used as a field guide. Instead, it is a photographic overview of the island's 181 resident and visiting birds, but not the other 150 less common vagrants. Each page covers 1-2 species with 1-4 photos and 1-5 paragraphs of text. As one would hope, greater coverage and more photos are given to the Puerto Rican endemics and the Caribbean specialties.
The color photographs are generally good and are shown in appropriate sizes. Some of them are a little grainy and others might lean towards small, but nothing too bad.
The text gives the usual contents of identification, habitat, habits, status, conservation, and range. Three-quarters of the text is dedicated to the bird's habits, status, and conservation, reinforcing this book is not geared to be used as a field guide. It is an at-home reference to review and learn about the more common Puerto Rican birds.
Enhancing the photographic content of this book is a CD attached to the inside, back cover. This CD contains 1,300 photos of all 335 species to have occurred on the island. Each bird has anywhere between 1 and 16 color photos. Just as in the book, text is offered for the species, often with additional material not found within the book. A nice addition is the inclusion of sound clips for most of the expected birds. The quality of the photos are not as good as those found inside the book, but they do offer more poses and variations. The CD was created to run on both Windows and Mac. It's worked for me with no problems on Windows 2000 and XP.
I've listed several related books below...
1) A Guide to the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by Raffaele
2) Las aves de Puerto Rico by Biaggi
3) Birds of the West Indies by Bond
4) Birds of the West Indies by Raffaele
5) A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies by Raffaele
6) Photographic Guide to Birds of the West Indies by Flieg
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