There are many great things about birding. To me, one of the foremost is that the birds we seek out are endlessly fascinating and so much more than mere ticks on a checklist. You could watch the same birds daily and every day gain insight into their lives. Or, and this is in no way a substitute for making your own observations, you can learn from those who have devoted themselves to the study of birds, such as Bridget Stutchbury, the author of The Private Lives of Birds.

According to the author, she is…

…a bird detective, revealing the behind-the-scenes details of the social lives of birds to understand why females cheat on their mates, what makes a male attractive, why some pairs divorce, how birds claim a territory – and what all this means not only for our avian friends, but for us as well.

The author pulls back the curtain (or the branch, if you will) on the day-to-day lives of birds, including:

• Mating – including infidelity and the influence of appearance and song
• Divorce
• Parenting
• Finding a territory
• Territoriality
• Coloniality
• Migration

Birders of all knowledge levels will learn something from this book. It makes a great introduction to bird behavior, while also presenting cool facts, and even entire topics, with which long-time birders may not be familiar. For instance, why do many migrant songbirds not attempt to breed multiple times a year, even though it seems like they have time to raise another brood? Stutchbury provides a likely answer*. I was also very pleased with the chapter on how birds find a territory, as I don’t think I had ever read anything dealing with that topic before.

The author uses birds that she has studied, or otherwise is most familiar with, as examples. This means that North American species are referred to for the most part, along with a few from the tropics of Central America. While the specific details presented here will be most relevant to those familiar with these birds, the overall concepts, and thus the book as a whole, are globally germane.

I realize that learning about how birds live may sound dull to many people, and even some birders may wonder of what benefit it is to them. But most people would be shocked to find out how much like a soap opera birds’ lives are. There are loose females, jealous males, and putting on appearances to make yourself look better than your neighbor. This is juicy stuff, and that’s just the first couple of chapters!

Further, knowing more about a bird and its behavior will enhance your birding. If I were to see a Blackpoll Warbler in New England during the fall, I’d know that it is trying to eat enough to fuel an amazing, non-stop, 2,200 mile, overwater flight all the way to South America! On the other hand, if I saw one at home in Georgia at that time, I’d be very surprised, as the bird should be somewhere over the Atlantic at that moment. So I’d know that I should carefully determine that it is, in fact, a Blackpoll instead of the very similar Bay-breasted Warbler. And if it is, I should alert others to this unusual sighting.

But the author gives an even more compelling reason why we should learn about birds’ lives: how can you save a species that you don’t know? Stutchbury ties many of the topics she covers to conservation. For example, one drastic effect humans may have on bird populations was uncovered by a study of mate choice in Savannah Sparrows. The fields they were breeding in were mowed mid-season, destroying the nests. Afterward, the larger, fitter males no longer held better territories and had fewer mates. The result is that, even though the sparrows renested, the young produced were less fit and probably less likely to survive, contributing to the species’ decline.

Stutchbury is a professional ornithologist, but since her target audience is amateur birders, she writes like a non-scientist. Her writing isn’t as riveting as a good novelist’s is, but it is far from the dry and impersonal text of academia. I appreciate that she does more than just present the facts; she often describes the studies that were done to uncover those facts. However, she eschews the practice of giving references within the text, but does include an appendix with a list of sources for each chapter for those who want to delve deeper.

This book is not heavily illustrated, but there are a few. A lovely, black-and-white drawing by Julie Zickefoose graces the first page of each chapter, usually depicting a bird discussed therein. Additionally, eight color photographs are clustered together in middle of the book.

Recommendation

The Private Lives of Birds is an excellent introduction to the behavior and social lives of birds. Anyone wanting to learn more about how birds live would be well advised to give it a read.

*Possible reason why more birds don’t attempt second broods: I’m summarizing extensively here, this is explained much better in the book. Many migrants actually would have time to raise another brood. But the problem is that they wouldn’t be able to do that AND complete their molt in time to migrate. Molt is either too expensive to be done at the same time as raising young, or if they try it, it just takes too much out of them so that they have a lower survival rate. And if they try to fit it all in, either they or their young might not have time to make it to the wintering grounds in time to get a good territory, thus making them less likely to be able to breed the next year. It’s a give-and-take that Stutchbury describes excellently.

Birding is, essentially, finding and identifying birds. But I would add a third component – recording your observations. Sure, I guess you don’t have to, but then your experiences will never benefit anyone else (via eBird, for instance) and won’t even benefit you in the likely case you eventually forget what you saw. And now there is an app for it, just as there are for finding (BirdsEye) and identifying (a plethora of choices).

Birdcountr is an app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad (Android version coming soon) that allows birders to record the birds they encounter. It includes just about every species found in the United States (minus Hawaii) and Canada, so it will be of interest primarily to those in the “North American”/ABA area.

The basic functionality, creating lists, is simple and straightforward:

1. Tap the large “Start A List” button.
2. The app will attempt to initialize the GPS. You can wait until the blue dot “finds” exactly where you are, or you can skip the process.
3. Enter the location name, or choose from a list of favorites.
4. Hit the “Start Birding” button.
5. To enter a bird, tap the family, and then the species.
   
   

   Family list

   

   Species list

6. 

   Species entry screen

   On the species entry screen, you’ll see four selector wheels. First, choose the type, which is the wheel on the far left. You will always have options for “Unsexed Unaged”, “Adult”, “Juvenile”, and “Heard Only”. But you can have over a dozen more for some species (“Adult Breeding”, “Second Cycle”, etc). For the most part, if the Sibley guide has a label for it, you can find it here. The other three selectors are for the number seen, one selector for each digit. Thus, the maximum you can enter is 999. After you enter your number, you’ll see the total updated in the “This Entry” box. You can now select something else from the first wheel and enter more numbers. This is very handy if, for example, you see a male/female pair and would like to specify that instead of just entering a generic value of 2. A text note can also be entered if you want to record additional information. Finally, you can send an alert via twitter if you see a species unusual for your area.
7. When done entering all the numbers for that species, hit “Save” and then “OK” in the pop-up confirmation.
8. When done with the list, hit the “end list” button at the bottom-right.

Once I got used to the interface, I found the list-entering process easy and fairly quick. However, it seems like it still takes a little longer than writing it down, and much longer than speaking into a voice recorder.

One of the app’s most important features is that it collects GPS data for each individual record. This data can then be used to map your sightings (more details below). I found the GPS data to be fairly accurate, though some were a bit off. Of course, any inaccuracies are the fault of the device and not the app.

Species list in scroll mode

There are three options for the default bird list – eastern, western, and custom. All three are user customizable, which is very nice. And if, while entering sightings, you find that you need a species not included on the list (which probably means you’re having a very good day!), you can hit the “All” button to have it display every bird.

Viewing Archives and Life List

Archived list

Map view of a list

The Archive button on the main screen will allow you to view saved lists either by date or by bird. If you browse by date, you select the month, and then the list you want. The summary screen will display the location, date, time, number of species seen, and a list of the birds. From here you can reopen the list, either just to edit, or “in the field” which will record new GPS data. You can also email yourself the list and view a map of your sightings. The map shows the birds you’ve recorded as pins on a Google map, using the GPS data. By default, all are displayed, or you can filter by species.

If you view the archives by bird, instead of date, you have a rudimentary life list. It will give you a count of how many birds you’ve recorded, along with a selectable list. Tapping on a species will tell you how many you’ve seen this year, the location of your most recent sighting, and allow you to get details from specific lists or view them on a map.

This works great if you want to bring up details from individual bird sightings. Although it can tell you how many birds you’ve seen, birdcountr was not designed to function as a life list application. It doesn’t tell you how many birds you’ve recorded in a particular year or location, or do any of the advanced filtering a birder needs from such a program.

Life list

Details of species you've seen

Issues

Here are the issues I’ve found with birdcountr, starting with the most serious:

• It crashes. A lot. However, the crashes mostly occur while viewing archived lists. It has yet to crash on me during the most inopportune time – while entering a list.
• There is no easy way to upload your lists into eBird or another listing program. This isn’t a big deal if you don’t use anything else, but many birders will also want to have their data available in a more robust listing-oriented application.
• The species selection is very good (over 900 species), but doesn’t include every bird on the ABA list. For example, Mangrove Swallow and Stygian Owl are not included. Ok, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll ever have the need to enter one of them. But, oddly, only one parrot is included (Monk Parakeet). On the other hand, included are a few that, if they have been seen, have not been accepted, such as Saffron Finch and Red-crested Cardinal.
• Although GPS data is recorded, it is not accessible for individual sightings. You can view the location on a map, but cannot get the actual coordinates.
• When you email a list, it doesn’t include the start and end times.
• It can hang during GPS initialization. This has only happened to me once. Just restart the app.

But the good news is that the app’s developer is already preparing fixes for most of these issues. An update should be available soon that takes care of an issue sending alerts to twitter and other minor issues. Following that will be more updates to make it more compatible with the latest iPhone operating system (which should improve stability), add export options, and incorporate the latest AOU species updates. A European version is even on the way!

Recommendation

I found birdcountr to be easy to use and, especially once the issues are fixed, it should do a great job of recording the birds you encounter. But its usefulness largely depends on your individual preferences and needs. For instance, this app may be a godsend for those wanting to collect GPS data for each sighting. But others may prefer the speed of a voice recorder. One thing is certain, though, with some bug fixes and additional features, this app could be an essential component of a birder’s toolkit.

You can always try out the lite version of birdcountr for free. It includes a limited number of species, but will let you get a feel for the way it functions.

• The Private Lives of Birds: A Scientist Reveals the Intricacies of Avian Social Life
  Bridget Stutchbury

  This book provides birders a glimpse into the ornithologist’s world. The author investigates the habits of birds in regard to mating, parenting, territoriality, migration, and more. But she does more than just present the facts; she explains the studies that were done to discover those facts. This is a great introduction to the lives of birds. Even experienced birders will learn something new.

• Peterson Reference Guide to Molt in North American Birds
  Steve N.G. Howell

  Molt is an intimidating topic, but one that is important for birders to understand. Howell first gives an extensive introduction to molt, and then describes the molting patterns for each family of North American birds. Honestly, I was surprised to find that all of the family accounts were worth reading; you never know what fascinating tidbits you may uncover, like the possibility that Bullock’s X Baltimore Oriole hybrids are selected against because they could be molting twice in the fall instead of just once. Personally, I understand molt much better now, and can see myself referring back to this guide often. Highly recommended to intermediate-to-advanced birders.

• Birds of Cape May
  Kevin T. Karlson

  Essentially a large-format photo album, this book showcases the birds of Cape May, New Jersey season by season. Karlson, an excellent photographer, provides most of the photos along with short captions. Recommended to those who’d like a good souvenir or reminder of a trip to this birding hotspot, or to any fan of bird photography in general.

• Nightjars, Potoos, Frogmouths, Oilbird, and Owlet-nightjars of the World
  Nigel Cleere

  This large, lavish book is a photographic guide to an intriguing group of birds. Just the fact that this book includes photos of every known member of this nocturnal and secretive group is amazing enough (though some, by necessity, are of museum specimens), but they’re also of very high quality and huge! Most birds are shown perched or roosting, there are few in-flight shots, unfortunately. A range map and terse text covering the species’ identification and natural history round out each account. This certainly won’t appeal to everyone, but caprimulgid fans should love it.

• Birds of the West Indies (Princeton Illustrated Checklists)
  Norman Arlott

  The guides in this “illustrated checklists” series are more than merely bound checklists with illustrations, yet less than a full field-guide. Still, a good bit of information is included in this portable book. With painted plates on the right-hand pages and text on the left, the design is certainly typical for field guides. It does include range maps, but unfortunately, they are all gathered together in the back. I haven’t yet extensively compared this to the identically named field guide by Herbert Raffaele. From my cursory examinations, I can’t unilaterally recommend one over the other right now.

• Birds of Australia: Eighth Edition
  Ken Simpson and Nicolas Day

  I don’t have any other Australian field guides to compare this against (except the prior edition of this guide!), nor have I ever been anywhere near Down Under. So I’m no authority here, but this is one good-looking field guide! Maybe it’s all the exotic-looking birds, but the plates (again on the right-hand page) are gorgeous. Text accounts, small black-and-white drawings, and very informative range maps accompany the paintings. For a field guide covering an avifauna about the same size as the US and Canada’s, this is a fairly compact book, making it possible to carry in the field. Take this with a grain of salt, given my lack of experience with this region, but if you’re looking for an Australian field guide, this is a legitimate choice.

Costa Rica. To a birder like me, those words conjure visions of an avian paradise: cloud forests bejeweled by Resplendent Quetzals, Scarlet Macaws flying over the rain forest, and hummingbirds flitting around flowers. However, Costa Rica is home to more than just birds (gasp!). There are butterflies, poison dart frogs, iguanas, lizards that run across water, sloths, and monkeys, just to name a few. In fact, though I was primarily looking for birds, many of my most memorable sightings in Costa Rica involve animals other than birds.

The Wildlife of Costa Rica is a field guide to many of the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and arthropods you may see there. Seeing as Costa Rica boasts over 800 species of birds and God-only-knows how many arthropods, by necessity this is more of a sampler than comprehensive guide. Most of the species were selected because they are easy to see, while others were chosen for their beauty or distinctiveness.

For the species that are included, you get a relatively extensive text account and one or more painted illustrations. The bird images have been taken from the excellent field guide by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean (also from Cornell University Press). Oddly, it does not seem that the mammal have likewise been taken from their Mammals of Costa Rica field guide. For the most part, all look good and are very consistent. Some of the mammals and snakes look a little awkward to me, but they’re the exception.

Text accounts cover description, status, distribution, habitat, habits, diet, and vocalizations. It’s a nice mix of information needed for identification and other interesting tidbits. Disappointingly, no range maps are included, even though at the very least maps for birds and mammals could have been taken from their respective individual field guides.

Interspersed throughout the book are 24 sidebars, or “natural history vignettes”. Some focus on single species, such as Brown-throated Three-toed Sloths, while others describe general phenomena like frog calls. These make for fascinating reading and are good supplements. There is also a short general introduction, covering the country’s geography, habitats, and weather. Taxonomic groups each have their own intro, from a full page for the classes (mammals, birds, etc) to single paragraphs for orders and families.

Unfortunate design leaves too much white space, while keeping some illustrations too small.

I think the root of the problem may be that the illustrations on each set of facing pages are in scale (except where noted). This is usually a good thing in field guides, but it works best when the illustrations are gathered together and the species are similarly sized. But that’s not always the case here, especially among the birds. This constraint forces some of the bird illustrations to be ridiculously small, while others occupy more of the page than they need to, precluding other birds from being included.

Some may find issue with the species selection or the amount of coverage that each group receives. Granted, I’ve only been to Costa Rica once, but I think they did a commendable job. Most of the birds and other animals I saw are included here. Roughly, half of the guide is devoted to birds, but that’s about right given their popularity and conspicuousness.

Comparison to Other Guides

Costa Rica is a popular destination for ecotravelers and others interested in wildlife, so it’s no surprise that this is not the first guide of its kind. Here are two other popular choices and, in brief, how they compare to this guide.

The Travellers’ Wildlife Guides Costa Rica, by Les Beletsky, also uses paintings to illustrate the same groups of animals, minus arthropods. It includes fewer species from even the groups it does cover, though, and much less species-specific text. There are, however, relatively extensive family-level accounts.

Carrol L. Henderson’s Field Guide to the Wildlife of Costa Rica covers the same groups as the Cornell book, but includes by far the fewest species of the three guides. It uses photographs instead of paintings, and has extensive, and often quite interesting, text accounts. It’s the largest and heaviest of the three, making the title a bit of a stretch.

Henderson has also broken down this large guide into three separate ones: Butterflies, Moths, and Other Invertebrates; Birds; and Mammals, Amphibians, and Reptiles of Costa Rica. These are intriguing because they offer greater flexibility than trying to include everything in a single volume. They are more comprehensive than the catch-all guides, but still not nearly enough so to use as primary field guides.

Recommendation

The Wildlife of Costa Rica is a good overview of the country’s diverse wildlife. Of the general guides, I think this one will work best due to its smaller size, yet greater number of species included. It should come in handy for any visitor who’s even slightly interested in the animals they will see there. I know it will for me when I go back.

• Larger images
• Replaced Next/Previous buttons with a swipe gesture
• Added one-tap enlargement of images and text
• Added the ability to rotate the device to landscape mode for larger images, bigger text and easier comparing
• Added a “Quick Search” box to “My List” when adding species
• Added additional sounds for 22 species

That’s right; you can now tap an image to make it display full-screen. And if you rotate the device, the image will rotate with it and enlarge even further. In this mode, the images are even larger than they are in the “big” Sibley print guide! Image size had been a major issue with the app, but it is now one of its strengths.

The compare function also got a major makeover. You can still compare species in the regular, vertical orientation. But now you can rotate to landscape mode and have the birds appear side-by-side. In this mode, you lose the ability to change species but the images are shown slightly larger. I’ve found it dramatically easier and more natural to compare in this new mode.

The other changes are relatively minor, but still welcome. You now enlarge the text by tapping on it and change species by swiping, instead of using buttons. Tapping maps also makes them larger, but they do not rotate, and the increase in size isn’t that substantial.

This update makes a good app even better (and all the more so because, as with all iphone app updates, it’s free to current users). The larger images, especially, are going to be extremely useful. However, it doesn’t change, so much as reinforce, the recommendation I made in my original review. This app is now an even better digital representation of the fabulous Sibley field guide. But the search function still needs to be improved to make it more usable for less experienced birdwatchers.

Besides the obvious answer that it allows crazy, obsessive types the excuse to create entire websites devoted to them, it’s a good question. Of course, you have to start with field guides. We legitimately need them for identification, and since birders tend to travel all over the place the field guides can really pile up. But even then, we aren’t satisfied with just one field guide. We need a guide that utilizes paintings as well as one that uses photographs, a larger guide that encompasses the entire continent and smaller regional guides, all-encompassing guides and family-specific ones.

But even so, field guides make up a relatively small portion of my birding library. So why have all the rest? Corey postulates two reasons, and both apply in my case. The first is that I want to learn all I can about birds. That includes how to identify them, obviously. But I also want to know about their biology and behavior. Birds are endlessly fascinating; you can read all you want but you’ll never know it all. Three of the books I’ve read recently have dealt with this, and I learned many interesting things from each one (National Geographic Bird Coloration, The Private Lives of Birds, and Molt in North American Birds).

The other reason Corey gives why birders may be such bibliophiles is that we tend to be a bit obsessive. We have lists for everything else, why not books we’ve read? This is definitely me. I’ve always been a collector. As a kid, it was Star Wars and Batman toys, baseball cards, and comic books. Now it’s bird books (as well as movie, comic, and baseball memorabilia – I don’t think I’ll ever grow up). I’ve wondered if my collector’s mentality is one of the things that attracted me to birding in the first place. Listing is, after all, just another word for collecting.

The final reason that I think I have so many bird books is that I simply enjoy reading about birds and birding, beyond reading for knowledge. I love big year-type accounts and other birding narratives. You’d think that reading about someone else birding would be the most boring thing in the world, but I devour it. I’d wager that the appeal of the numerous bird-art books is readily apparent. And then there’s anything written by Pete Dunne…you get the point.

I don’t think I ever stood a chance. My predisposition to collect, life-long love of reading, and the fact that a bird book got me into birding all conspired to make me a bird book lover. I’m glad that I’m not the only one.

Bayshore Summer is the second entry, following Prairie Spring, in Pete Dunne’s four book series exploring each of the seasons in a special place. When I think of birding in the summer, I first think of Southeast Arizona’s hummingbird bonanza or the explosion of life in the Arctic. However, Dunne takes us to an unexpected location – New Jersey’s Delaware Bay shore.

Following the same pattern as Prairie Spring, Dunne explores the natural world of Jersey’s bayshore through mostly independent, vignette-like chapters. Naturally, since the author is one of North America’s preeminent birders and writer about birds, birds play a role in this narrative. But it is not as much as I was expecting, and much less than in the series’ first volume.

Most of the attention is given to the people who interact with this ecosystem. Through the author, the reader goes out on a large fishing party boat with dozens of recreational fishermen as well as small skiffs with lifelong baymen. You will tag along with game wardens during a sting operation designed to catch a poacher. You will also work alongside those bailing hay in the marshes and visit local farming operations that grow the famous “Jersey Tomato”. Through all of this, you will gain an insight into this endangered environment, including its inhabitants and culture.

While this series’ initial entry filled me with a desire to visit the prairie and know it the way Dunne did, this one did not accomplish the same. The entire chapter devoted to the horrors inflicted by the hoards of biting and stinging critters that emerge in summer didn’t help in this regard. (Though I must say that chapter is classic Dunne*.) Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy learning about this place that I knew virtually nothing about beforehand. It just didn’t make me want to jump on a plane and explore it myself.

But I think that’s ok. Dunne isn’t trying to convince the reader to visit this particular location as much as he’s beseeching you to pay attention to what is going on around you, wherever that is. To me, the heart of the book is a brilliant chapter on the unseen (or more likely, unnoticed) natural dramas playing out even in the middle of summer, when it’s so easy to miss or think that “just the usual” is going on. But throughout Bayshore Summer, Dunne encourages us to not just observe, but to actively engage the natural world.

Recommendation

Honestly, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Prairie Spring. Personally, I would have preferred more writing about birds and other creatures and less about fishing. But I also understand that’s not the story Dunne wanted to tell. He’s written plenty about birds, this is about something greater. Interaction with nature can take many forms – birding, fishing, farming, hunting, even poaching. It’s not so much how you do it, but just that you get outside and do it. (Although poaching is probably not the best choice.) And Dunne succeeds in this regard; Bayshore Summer makes you yearn for a greater connection with nature and place, whether that be along Jersey’s bayshore or somewhere else. (And just for the record, I’d still rather read Dunne’s writing on a subject I have no interest in than just about anyone else’s about something I love.)

*I love this quote:

As a species, we have certainly been guilty of many affronts to nature and the divine order, and a reckoning in the here or the hereafter is due.
There is still no excuse for chiggers.

It’s funny because it’s true.

Peru is a birder’s paradise. With over 1800 species, it is second only to Columbia in terms of bird diversity. And new species are still being discovered! Thus, it is vital that the country have an excellent field guide. And it does.

Frank Lambert has already written a great, detailed review of the first edition of this field guide. I won’t attempt to cover the same ground, since he has a much greater expertise and experience with neotropical birds than I do. Instead, I’ll provide an overview of the guide, some general impressions, and how this “revised and updated” edition differs from the prior one.

The guide follows a fairly standard format of illustrations on the right-hand page with text and maps on the left. The illustrations, paintings provided by several artists, are labeled with the species name. The sex, age, and subspecies name are indicated where appropriate.

The maps are all lined up on the far left-hand side. The species accounts contain:

• Length – in centimeters and inches (bravo!); wingspan where appropriate
• Geographic Variation – an * next to the name indicates that there are two or more subspecies (across the entire range)
• Relative Abundance – common, uncommon, etc
• Habitats
• Behavior
• Elevational Distribution
• Voice
• Regional Distribution – indicates the countries surrounding Peru where the species is also present, or if it is a Peruvian endemic

The illustrations are attractive and, given the number of artists, fairly consistent. Thankfully, the plates haven’t been crammed full of tiny birds, like some neotropical guides. On average, there are about six birds per plate, and the illustration sizes are about right (with some outliers, of course). The labeling and layout are generally intuitive and well done. Still, there are some plates where I was confused as to which illustration belonged to which species. Finally, the only other thing I could wish for would be annotated arrows pointing to field marks, a la the Sibley and Collins guides. It appears that there is actually enough room for them on these plates.

The maps are also quite helpful, using seven different colors to indicate a bird’s range within the country. The department (state) boundaries and some major rivers are shown, thankfully. I found nothing to complain about concerning the handling of the maps.

There is not enough room for an extensive species account. Thus, the text focuses on that which will assist in field identification. Still, the authors were able to include a good bit of information. I was especially pleased to see relative abundance and elevational information included.

Subspecies identification and distribution are critical in the neotropics, where many of them are likely to be elevated eventually to full species. Birds of Peru does a decent job illustrating and discussing field-identifiable subspecies that occur within the country. However, in the case where there is only one subspecies found in Peru, I would have liked the subspecies name to be given. The asterisk indicating geographic variation is a step in the right direction, but I think the actual name would have been much more useful.

Changes in the Revised Edition

I don’t have the previous edition, so I cannot make a direct comparison. But here are the changes that I’m aware of.

The most obvious change is in the binding – from a jacketless hardcover to paperback. This change will obviously lighten the guide somewhat, making it more portable. But I don’t know how much of a practical difference this actually makes. The new binding seems like it would be fairly durable.

This revised guide includes an additional 25 species not covered in the first. Most have been found in Peru for the first time since the first edition’s cutoff date, but some are the result of taxonomic splits and at least one is an entirely new species discovered recently. 21 of these birds are grouped together on three plates appended to the end of the guide’s main section. The others, I believe all a result of splits, are included in the main body of plates.

Recommendation

Birds of Peru is a field guide worthy of the country it covers. However, if you have no plans to bird in Peru or nearby regions and have no interest in neotropical birds, then you have no reason to get this field guide (if that’s you, why are you reading this?). Likewise, if you have the previous edition and aren’t planning to visit Peru anytime soon, then there is not a compelling reason to upgrade. But everyone else should have a copy of this commendable guide. And if you’re lucky enough to be birding in Peru, you’d be crazy not to have this with you.