The Birds of Costa Rica: the new Garrigues guide
CharlasBirds, Birding & Books
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1chrisharpe
Another book that I acquired earlier in the year was the new Garrigues guide to The Birds of Costa Rica. It aims to be an alternative to the long-time standard Guide to the birds of Costa Rica by Stiles & Skutch, which is now almost 20 years old and showing its age.
This is not a new edition of Stiles & Skutch, but a lighter, more concise, field-oriented alternative. The first feature most visitors will enjoy is the reduction in bulk: it is half the weight of the earlier guide. It also features plates, text and maps on one double spread, illustrates all mainland species and provides up-to-date bird names, following AOU taxonomy.
Although the new guide does not really supersede Stiles & Skutch, I know that this is the guide that most birders will want to take in the field now. It is the portable guide that birding visitors and general travellers have been waiting for all these years.
At a time when so many neotropical avifaunas are treated in two volume works – a “field guide” and a “species accounts” or “distribution” tome – one might view Birds of Costa Rica in the same light: Garrigues is the field guide, while Stiles & Skutch provides the detail.
I'll be in Costa Rica in a month's time, using this guide in the field alongside my older field guide and will post any further comments after that.
This is not a new edition of Stiles & Skutch, but a lighter, more concise, field-oriented alternative. The first feature most visitors will enjoy is the reduction in bulk: it is half the weight of the earlier guide. It also features plates, text and maps on one double spread, illustrates all mainland species and provides up-to-date bird names, following AOU taxonomy.
Although the new guide does not really supersede Stiles & Skutch, I know that this is the guide that most birders will want to take in the field now. It is the portable guide that birding visitors and general travellers have been waiting for all these years.
At a time when so many neotropical avifaunas are treated in two volume works – a “field guide” and a “species accounts” or “distribution” tome – one might view Birds of Costa Rica in the same light: Garrigues is the field guide, while Stiles & Skutch provides the detail.
I'll be in Costa Rica in a month's time, using this guide in the field alongside my older field guide and will post any further comments after that.
2chrisharpe
Having used this guide in earnest in Costa Rica earlier this month I have to say that I am much more impressed with it than I was when I first looked it over. The book is certainly a good stand-alone field guide to Costa Rican birds. It fits very nicely in a large pocket or "fanny pack / bum bag". The plates are much more carefully crafted than I had appreciated initially - a lot of care and experience has gone into their making and in the field they are much better than the old Dana Gardner plates, even though there has been a printing problem and many of them a far too washed out (the Prong-billed Barbet being one fo the worst). It pains me to say it, but my trusty old Stiles and Skutch Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica was just dead weight in my bag this year. In sum, this is a really a great little guide and the author and artist deserve to be congratulated. Highly recommended!
Oh, a bit of bird-related trivia... the artist for the new Costa Rica guide, Robert Dean, had a former life as guitarist for the British 1970s rock group Japan. I vaguely remember the band, but I have to say the birding world will thank him more for his pretty accomplished bird plates.
Not birds, but they do fly (usually!), and I don't know where to post this... I picked up a great new guide to the "Butterflies and Moths of Costa Rica" by Chacón and Montero (not surprisingly no touchstones) in the wonderful INBio series and saw a great new Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg (he of Butterflies through Binoculars fame). The latter is really quite a revolutionary idea for the Neotropics and, although the focus is Mexico, it is handy in Costa Rica and into South America too. It appears to be available from the publishers only at http://www.sunstreakbooks.com/Swift%20Guide%20to%20the%20Butterflies%20of%20Mexi... and there are some nice scans there too.
Oh, a bit of bird-related trivia... the artist for the new Costa Rica guide, Robert Dean, had a former life as guitarist for the British 1970s rock group Japan. I vaguely remember the band, but I have to say the birding world will thank him more for his pretty accomplished bird plates.
Not birds, but they do fly (usually!), and I don't know where to post this... I picked up a great new guide to the "Butterflies and Moths of Costa Rica" by Chacón and Montero (not surprisingly no touchstones) in the wonderful INBio series and saw a great new Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg (he of Butterflies through Binoculars fame). The latter is really quite a revolutionary idea for the Neotropics and, although the focus is Mexico, it is handy in Costa Rica and into South America too. It appears to be available from the publishers only at http://www.sunstreakbooks.com/Swift%20Guide%20to%20the%20Butterflies%20of%20Mexi... and there are some nice scans there too.
