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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2009
As pointed out in other reviews, this guide does not include western China so if traveling to that area an additional Field Guide is necessary. The artists are all quite accomplished, but there are certainly some shortcomings with the plates. Looking at plate 225 which covers species/subspecies with which I am familiar, the Orange-crowned Warblers are too dark and streaked below, especially for the lutescens subspecies which is supposedly the depicted one. On the same plate the first winter female Yellow Warbler is unrecognizable as that species with the auricular being too dark and the face not blank enough. The Chinese Babax on plate 170 is poor, especially with regard to its shape. Plate 202 is the worst in the book that I've noticed so far. Despite its apparent good artwork there's a MAJOR disconnect between the written description and the plate itself, especially when addressing wing length. Brazil's descriptions seem to be correct and the plate wrong. On plate 8 the relative size of the frontal blaze on Greater and Lesser White-fronted Geese seem to be reversed. I'm confident others with more experience with the involved species could find other problems with the book, but as the title of this review says, it's a big improvement.
