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A Guide to the Birds of Panama
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List Price: $49.95
Our Price: $32.97
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Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 598
EAN: 9780691025124
ISBN: 0691025126
Label: Princeton University Press
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 412
Publication Date: 1992-06-15
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Studio: Princeton University Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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This is the first paperback version of the second edition of the popular A Guide to the Birds of Panama. In the second edition, published in 1989, the authors expanded information on the birds of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras: approximately 200 new species were added to the material in the 1976 edition. Over 300 additional species, some of them Panamanian, were illustrated. Sixteen new plates were added, and three of the original plates were replaced by improved versions. Throughout the book changes were made to accommodate the explosion in knowledge of the birds of Panama and nearby areas and of neotropical birds in general. The basic sequence and systematics of the AOU 1983 Check-list were adopted. Also included in the revised edition was expanded and updated information on birdfinding in Panama, prepared with the assistance of two of Panama's best resident birders. The book also contains a special section outlining developments in Panama ornithology and conservation. "A sophisticated treatment of one of the world's richest avifaunas."--The Quarterly Review of Biology
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: You need it for birding panama, but not in the field
Comment: It remains the only guide specific to the birds of Panama so a birder headed to that country has almost no choice but to buy a copy. However, this is a 1989 update to a work originally completed in 1974 and it is sorely lacking many features that are incorporated into the "modern" field guides published in the last decade.
Significant problems with this book that hopefully a future Panama bird guide will address:
1) There are no range maps showing the distribution of species in Panama. There is a text description of the range for each bird, but this is vastly inferior to a map, especially for someone who is visiting Panama.
2) Immature birds are not illustrated, and females are poorly illustrated: often with just a drawing of the head. The coverage for the Euphonias is especially poor with no illustration of the commonly encountered immature male Thick-billed Euphonia (looks like the female, but with the black mask and yellow head spot of the adult male), and only a head illustration for the male Tawny-capped Euphonia without any illustration of the female Tawny-capped Euphonia to assist in distinguishing it from the similar (illustrated) female Fulvous-vented Euphonia. Female hummingbirds are also mostly absent, or only shown with an illustration of the head.
3) The paperback version has an extremely heavy binding and is too heavy for all but the most athletic birders to take into the field. I saw many people who had resorted to cutting the illustrative plates out of the book, binding those, and carrying that into the field. If you are planning to stay at any hotel billing itself as a birdwatching site then you don't even need to bring this book with you to Panama as you will be better served browsing a hotel copy at the end of your day. The book is more useful as a reference work before and after your trip to Panama.
4) A minor complaint, but given that almost all groups of birders in Panama include native Spanish speakers it would be helpful to have the common Spanish bird names included in the text along with the already included common English and scientific names.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Throrough but...
Comment: As other reviewers have noted, the abscence of pictures throughout most of the guide makes it a little tough to use. The info is great, regional abundance seems in-depth enough and the number of birds listed is complete. However not having been to the region before, I had to buy a birds of Costa Rica book to find pictures of many of the species I was unfamiliar with in my birding experiences. I believe the new guide (due out in 2008) will be a great addition your field guide collection. I'm unsure if the new guide will be effective in replacing this keystone book for Panama's birds.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Big Help
Comment: I'm an experienced birder, but this was my first trip to Panama. The number of species found in Panama is amazing. I was very pleased that a book that I could actually take in the field was so complete! This is an excellent buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Birds of Panama
Comment: I would recommend that anyone interested in the birds of Panama buy this book, however it is not the only book available about the birds of Panama. There is the Guia de Las Aves de Panama by Ridgely and Gawynne (ISBN 958-95245-0-8) and An Illustrated Field Guide to the Birds of Panama by Ponce y Muschett (ISBN 84-89127-76-X). It is best to have as much information as possible before a trip even if all these books have their shortcomings. Robert B Gillies, Volcan, Chiriqui, The Republic of Panama.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Strong overall with a few significant flaws
Comment: The text in this book is excellent, with good descriptions of the various species and nice writeups of behavioral habits. However if you want to use the book as a field guide to identify the birds you are seeing, there are some flaws that make this hard to do:
1. Not all birds are represented in the color plates. None of the 15 swift species, for example, get an entry on the plates.
2. Some birds have no picture at all, not even a black and white line drawing in the text. Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, for example.
3. The index is incomplete. Try finding a saltator in the index.
4. There are two sets of plates. Most birds are in the first set, but there is a seemingly arbitrary set of birds relegated to "additional" plates near the back of the book. This makes it hard to do the tried and true method of scanning plates to help you quickly identify the bird you just saw.
So as a field guide this book probably merits only 3 stars. But to be fair it's not labeled as a field guide, but rather a "Guide to the Birds of Panama." Given the high quality of the text, it fills that role nicely.
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