A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America

We selected this book at the recommendation of our Mexican bird guide. We ordered the book six months in advance so I'd have time to study the book and develop lists (based on range maps and frequency info) of birds we are are most lifely to see. The bird guide warned us this was not a typical field guide, not easy to carry in a pocket or backpack. It's large, heavy, and has a lot of detailed information. But on the plus side, it has the very best pictures of the birds, very detailed range maps, and an immense arount of information.The guide explained that he took his book apart. He carries the 71 pages of beautiful color plates with brief information (English and Latin names, length in inches and cm, and descriptive information to help in identification. The rest of the 850 page book, he has put tegether and leaves it at home or in his car. This seemed very practical. I decided I'd use this book to study the birds and rely on his colored plates and well as the guide when I have difficulty identifying a bird.The black and white range maps communicate a great deal of helpful information. They indicate Permanent Residents, Breeding Residents (You should know these birds are usually gone the rest of the year), winter or summer residents, former residents, transient visitors, non-breeding visitors, location of breeding colonies, etc.Most of the accompanying information is quite clear.ID (identifcation) describes the bird in detail including differences in male and female, breeding plumage, and juvenile birds. It also includes a section describing the birds voice, and a section describing its preferred habitat incluing altitude.SS (Similar Species) helps you separate this bird in relation to similar species that might be in the area.SD (Status and Distribution) Status here means frequency. The distribution clarifies the frequency in various parts of the range map. For example, the bird might be a permanent resident over a wide area, but common in parts of that area and rare in other parts. But I must warn you. This section takes some serious effort to translate. You must first read introduction to the book and study the books. It includes some information as "Hepatica: C to F resident (1000-3000 m to 150 m in Ithmus)from Son and Coah to N. Chis:" and that's only half of the sentence. Abbreviations used for Mexican states are familiar to Mexicans but confusing to the rest of us. It's like saying NY - FL in th United States. A long introduction explains the abbreviations and provides a number of helpful maps.There's also a long section in the back of the book,listing more important island groups, with symbols showing what birds you might find there with frequency and time of year.If you are looking for a simple, light weight bird guide to carry with you in the field. This is NOT the book you want.If you are a serious birder, looking for the kind of detailed information this book provides, and for the best possible pictures, I feel certain this book is exactly the right book for you.

I think few would question that this is the definitive guide to Mexican birds. Few would characterize it as the ideal field guide at 850-plus pages. For portable guides birders in Mexico can use the Peterson-Chalif guide (somewhat dated, but still useful), _The Birds of Mexico and Adjacent Areas_ by Ernest P. Edwards from 1998 (also quite useful and perhaps a bit underrated, though the sequence of some illustrations seems a bit baffling at times), and Van Perlo's illustrated checklist (not really a field guide in my view).But nothing compares to Howell & Webb. And with some real bargains on used (even worn) copies occasionally found at Amazon, one can (with the help of a copy-printing service) obtain a portable guide that works quite well in the field. It's not a new practice and I may be covering ground already trod by other reviewers, but this is how I did it.The copy service I used went with a small wire spiral for the plates and a large plastic spiral for the text. The Plates Volumes consists of:- a laminated copy of the front cover- a copy of the Color Plates table of contents- a copy of the Abbreviations page- all plates- a laminated copy of the back coverThe Text Volume (kept in the car or hotel room for reference) includes:- the front cover- all text pages, including Appendices, Bibliography, and Index- the back coverDon't do this with your only copy of this book. My first edition copy is intact and used for reference at home.

This guide is very good, it has very complete information on distribution, behaviour, physical characteristics of the birds, voice, etc that are helpful for identifying species. The color plates are not so good, I have found plenty of cases in which the color plates on the book do not represent the real colors of the birds. Additionaly, there are many species that are not illustrated on the color plates, specially migratory species coming from North America so I recommend using a field guide of north american birds too (for example the National Geographic Field Guide for Birds of North America).The binding of the book doesn't seem to be long lasting. Even when this is not a field guide (the book is very big so you cannot carry it with you on the field), under normal use the color plates appear to become loose very quickly,

One of the best bird field guides ever written. It's a little large, but it has a lot of valuable information. You may decide to leave it at home as a reference and ravel with something smaller, like Peterson's.

Better as a desk reference than a field guide. Too big for convenient field use. In fairness, the book does not describe itself as a field guide. No plates for several classes of birds, such as the gulls and most shorebirds, and my preference in a field guide is to have the text and plates on facing pages. The illustrations are very good, and the text, once you get to it, is very informative. The range maps are in black and white with seasonal ranges represented by different diagonal or hash marks, which are not nearly so user friendly as colored maps (again, see Nat Geo). Considering how many guides have great indexing (e.g., NatGeo Field Guide to North American Birds) I can't understand why every guide doesn't adopt that approach. So, an impressive and informative work overall, but not really a field guide.

Great book. Perfect for Mexican birds. Have brought it on my trips there. Very complete and informative.

Un excelente libro, la info muy acertada, las imágenes muy nítidas.

a Valuable guide

Comprehensive, as a result it is big and heavy. Pictures of all the tropical birds but not all the migratory birds

Bought it on offer, very expensive otherwise. Worth it if you see it at a good price. Deffinetly outdated, not a pocket book at all, but very useful to have at the office or home to identify bird species. Needs an update, but its understandable that they dont make one as the investment would be huge and the resulting book even more costly than this one.