Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to the Birds of Brazil

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4 star:		(1)
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Advantages:
* Covers all Brazilian species
* Very well laid out although bird images could have been a tad larger on some plates.
* Very clear distribution maps - excellent use of colors for seasonal variations.
* Excellent index - one of the best.
* Descriptions, although very brief and maps opposite the plates.
* Several names are used following popular nomenclatures e.g. Maroon/Reddish bellied Parakeet.
* Species names in English, Portuguese and Scientific.
* Species are well laid out on each plate - average is about 10 species / page.

Disadvantages:
* Plates are from very good to mediocre e.g. Seabirds (poor), Tanagers (good), Woodpeckers (good), Tyrannulets (very poor). Most are OK cf next point.
* The posture/appearance of many species, especially the families that are confined to South America, is poor e.g. the Spadebills.
* The names of the birds do not appear on the plates; they are cross referenced by numbers; I find this very annoying in the field.
* Numbering system - not the most ideal: why repeat the plate number beside the illustration of each species?
* A bit bulky - 6'" x 9'" x 1" for a field guide - could have made it 6" x 9" without sacrificing anything i.e. lots of wasted space.
* Wastage of 1 cm of empty space at top and bottom of book unnecessarily makes it heavier to carry in field.
* Size of species on most plates may be totally misleading e.g. on plate 46 Macaw at 50cm is same size as Pigeon at 40cm.
* At least two mistakes: plate 86.4 should be 86.6; plate 5 Herald Petrel should be heraldica, but should this not be Trinidade?

Overall:
* If you are travelling to Brazil it is the only book to have all the species. For the passerines only Ridgely and Tudor's Songbirds of South America is superior but with many missing species and their two volume series is excellent but the latter are not field guides. For northern Brazil Restall, Rodner and Lentino's Birds of Northern South America Vol 2 may be a marginally better choice but for bird descriptions you will also have to have Vol 1. The locally produced All the birds of Brazil by Souza is, in my opinion, a very distant competitor.

This is an excellent book on the birds of Brazil. The illustrations are very well done and the indications on the map of Brazil show clearly where the bird can be found. Recently on a trip to the island of Dominica, I spotted an unusual bird that could not be identified in my West Indies Field Guide to Birds. I made a quick sketch of the bird and indicated color references on my sketch, and when I came home a week later was able to unequivically identify this bird using A Field Guide to the Birds of Brazil. The bird was a vagrantfrom Brazil. I was very fortunate to have such good illustrations to reviw which enabled me to identify this mystery bird (it was a green winged saltator, for those who are curious).