The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide |  | Author: Richard Garrigues
Creator: Robert Dean
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $19.61
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Seller: BooKnackrh
Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 72736
Media: Paperback
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 080147373X
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.097286
EAN: 9780801473739
ASIN: 080147373X
Publication Date: April 12, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Graced with bounteous natural beauty, a stable democratic government, and friendly citizens, Costa Rica has become a popular destination for travelers from all over the world. Birds play a prominent role in attracting visitors, too. The shimmering quetzals, gaudy macaws, and comical toucans only begin to hint at the impressive avian diversity to be found throughout this small country."--from the Introduction This is the one field guide the novice or experienced birder needs to identify birds in the field in the diverse habitats found in Costa Rica. It features descriptions and illustrations of more than 820 resident and neotropical migrant species found in Costa Rica, all in a compact, portable, user-friendly design. The detailed full-color illustrations show identifying features--including plumage differences among males, females, and juveniles--and views of birds in flight wherever pertinent. Additional features of this all-new guide include: o 166 original color plates depicting more than 820 species. o Concise text that describes key field marks for positive identification, as well as habitat, behavior, and vocalizations. o Range maps and texts arranged on opposing pages from illustrations for quick, easy reference. o The most up-to-date bird list for Costa Rica. o A visual guide to the anatomical features of birds with accompanying explanatory text. o Quick reference to vultures and raptors in flight.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 42
 I feel lighter already... May 14, 2007
James J. Peterson (Dallas, TX United States)
101 out of 105 found this review helpful
For 95% of the traveler's going to Costa Rica, you'll want to take this book.
For readers interested in natural history, I think it's important to understand what this book is - and what Costa Rica needed. The new Garrigues and Dean field guide, The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide (henceforth the G&D field guide) will not be the new barometer for definitive field guides. Lucky for us, it doesn't need to be. The earlier Skutch and Stiles Field Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (henceforth the S&S field guide) is a great field guide in its own right, but has no need to be duplicated. On the plus side, the earlier S&S guide has buckets of information about behavior and ecology, and it is highly informative about general natural history as well as birds. The problem has been that for nearly a decade now, the S&S field guide was just too much for nearly every traveler. The limitations become greater with every passing year. It suffers from an extremely heavy weight (especially when wet), has no visual range maps, and has color plates that are small, sometimes dark, and sometimes poorly placed.
Costa Rica simply doesn't need a bird field guide to compete with the S&S guide (who wants to compete with Alexander Skutch!). It needed a guide to solve the aforementioned S&S problem - a lighter weight, better plates, and good range maps. This book, by Richard Garrigues (Author) and Robert Dean (illustrator), solves that problem. It's easy to call the book "excellent" because of the overall mission. It didn't have to be the best ever ... it had to be the most useful for travelers (and, yes, birders) going to Costa Rica. Clearly the authors knew exactly what they were out to accomplish.
The weight and the range maps of the new guide will become obvious right away to those who have walked and used the S&S field guide for so many years (I'm now in double-digit territory on the number of times I've been to Costa Rica). The color plates, however, are a comparison thing. One will have had to have had the S&S guide to appreciate the change - but it's there. So for these three challenges, mission accomplished. Done. Solved.
To get to the proper weight, the G&D field guide had the good sense to remove the ecology, habits, and behavior of all the birds. Adding that information would mostly just duplicate the S&S field guide anyway. The G&D guide concentrates on the physical characteristics needed for identification - just what most of us are looking for. I like the habits and ecology of the birds - but I don't need to lug that information into the field. That's the kind of information I'll look up later. The new G&D guide also eliminates some rather unnecessary pelagic birds and concentrates specifically on what most travelers need... the land birds.
The range maps, thankfully, are large enough to look at without squinting. I would have liked to have seen the maps break down the regional borders, but it's hard to quibble when you've never had a visual range map before. (for the record, I have not looked at the accuracy of the maps. Someone will need to chime in later on that one).
The plates were the biggest challenge. Dean has done an admirable job by making the plates bigger and cleaning up the rather flat, dark, images that occasionally plague the S&S guide. There are fewer images per page, and if anyone has tried to deal with the hummingbird plates on the S&S guide, you'll immediately appreciate the improvement. Finding the right text for the right species for that guide required some visual gymnastics. I also agree with the reviewer who said the images in the new G&D guide seem a little dim sometimes. They do. But after seeing images that were too dark for so many years, I don't feel any room to complain. I'm convinced it's not Dean's plates, but the printing itself. In North America we had a similar problem with the rufous and red colors in the Sibley field guides. Hey... it happens. Still, the detail of the plates is significantly better even if the color isn't as lively or as rich as it should be on some species.
In all, most everyone will likely end up with this as their primary bird field guide. That's really a shocking statement to make and I didn't expect to be making it. That's a real tribute to the author and illustrator. The S&S guide will still be in the suitcase of course, but thankfully I won't need to drag its fat, warped body around with me anymore. Researchers and students may opt for the older S&S guide because of the informative text, but most birders and passive visitors will want the lighter, more useful G&D guide. It's a great addition.
Sweet New CR Field Guide May 3, 2007
Hans de Grys (Seattle, WA USA)
34 out of 35 found this review helpful
This is a great new field guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Although not as comprehensive as the venerable Stiles & Skutch, it packs over 820 species into a pocket-sized guide. The illustrations by Robert Dean are beautifully rendered and seem quite accurately done (experts on CR birds can chime in to confirm or refute this assertion). I also love that the illustrations are large in size, instead of the tiny pictures that are sometimes packed into neotropical field guides.
The layout of this guide is also different from most large-format Latin American field guides. Instead of a couple of dozen separate color plates in the center of the book like Stiles & Skutch, this new book has illustrations on every right-hand page (166 plates in all), with a short description of the bird on the facing (left) page. The descriptive info is brief, but often includes important field marks, habitat, and vocalizations. I also love the inclusion of range maps on the same page, a cool feature missing from most of the other Costa Rica field guides.
Overall, this book does not have the comprehensive scope of Stiles & Skutch, but it delivers what it promises -- a pocket-sized (well, 7.5" x 5" x 1"), beautifully illustrated field guide focusing on field identification. I have three bird field guides for CR, and already this one is my favorite.
Best Costa Rica Birding Field Guide Available!!! December 12, 2007
giantconebill (Watertown, New York)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
WOW!!! What a great new field guide. If you're a birder and planning to go to Costa Rica, then this book is for you. I've been a frequent traveller to both Central and South America and have purchased numerous field guides to the birds of those regions. This guide establishes a new standard which I would like to see emulated by future guides. It is compact, beautifully illustrated, and arranged in a logical and easy-to-use format. No longer is it necessary to remove and laminate the plates from the larger Costa Rica guides because Robert Dean has managed to put all the birds of CR in your pocket- literally. This book should really be called the "Dean Guide" because, let's face it, a lot of us buy a field guide primarily for the illustrations. Dean has done an incredible job of creating great illustrations without the need to cram them all together in a limited number of plates. Instead of having to sort through 20+ species of hummingbirds or tanagers on a single plate, Dean has expertly illustrated an average of 5 species per plate. The "Dean Guide" also remedies another complaint I find with most neotropical field guides- he illustrates ALL of the birds. Take warblers for example- instead of illustrating only resident warblers, he illustrates all of the migrants one might expect to see as well. No more having to sort through multiple field guides to identify similar species. I love the placement of the range maps and Garrigues' concise and to-the-point descriptive text. The Birds of Costa Rica establishes a new benchmark for neotropical guides.
A new benchmark for field guides March 24, 2009
Gary Clark (Spring Creek, NV, United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
We already had the Stiles & Skutch field guide, but like many other birders, didn't enjoy carrying it in the field. The task that Garrigues and Dean took on was to create a guide for birders, not ornithologists. They made several design decisions that, after use, I came to appreciate: First, they did not include a lot of descriptive information that isn't needed to identify the bird. Most birders want to ID the bird; some will research it further, but that can be done back home in the comfort of the home library or computer office. Second, they chose not to include the pelagic birds - a great choice, because they are covered so well elsewhere, and not many people I know travel to Costa Rica to bird in the open ocean. Third, they put ALL the information for a given species in one spot - illustration, description, and range map. This has been the downfall of many a guide, usually because of printing costs for color plates; apparently the market is now strong enough to allow printing every page in color.
Finally, the book is laid out well, with big family tages at the top, open space around the illustrations, and very high quality artwork. It is a delight to use. If you are going to Costa Rica, buy it! In fact, buy it even if you're not, to see what a well-designed field guide should look like.
This book is perfect February 18, 2008
Bob (Cincinnati, OH)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wow! This book is so much nicer than its heavy predecessor (you know which I mean). It's just so easy to use, and I love having the range map, name, description and picture all next to each other. They even repeat the name next to the picture to make scanning for a particular bird much easier. This will be the only book I plan take to Costa Rica.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 42
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