Selected Book
Birds of Ecuador Field Guide
- Paperback
- Author: Robert S. Ridgely, Paul J. Greenfield
- Publisher: Cornell University Press
- Release Date: June 2001
- ISBN-10: 0801487218
- ISBN-13: 9780801487217
- List Price: $55.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryBirds of Ecuador comprehensively treats the nearly 1600 species of birds that can be found in mainland Ecuador. The authors describe Ecuador this way: "One of the wonders of the natural world. Nowhere else is such incredible avian diversity crammed into such a small country. . . . Birds are, happily, numerous in many parts of Ecuador: even the downtown parks of the big cities such as Quito and Guayaquil host their complement." Volume I, Status, Distribution, and Taxonomy, contains detailed information on the ecology, status, and distribution of all species. Introductory chapters deal with geography, climate, and vegetation; bird migration in Ecuador; Ecuadorian ornithology; endemic bird areas in Ecuador; and conservation. Individual species accounts treat habitat, distribution, and taxonomy. Volume II, Field Guide, contains 96 full-color plates and facing pages of descriptive text, a color map of Ecuador, 2 line drawings of bird anatomy, 115 silhouette outlines, and nearly 1600 distribution maps. All species are illustrated in full color, including migrants and vagrants and visually distinctive subspecies. The text focuses on the field identification aspects of each species, including their behavior, vocalizations, and nest appearance. The two volumes are available separately or may be purchased as a slipcased set. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
A must have for birding Ecuador
Rating:
I spent 6 weeks birding Ecuador using this guide. It is mammoth. But it is also one of the best field guides I have used. The main complain is that the plates are separte from the descriptions. That does allow one to separate the two and carry just the plates. My birding buddy did that.
One of the distinct pluses of this guide is it tells what species are similar to the observed species. The illustrations are well done though some are rather small, humming birds. The best way to carry it is to build a pouch that attaches to a belt. That way it is at your side ready to grab at a moment's notice. It is actually about the same size as Howell's Birds of Mexico or Hilty's Birds of Venezuela, two other tomes.
My advice is if you do not want to lug around a large field guide, then don't plan on birding Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru or Brazil.
very good field guide!
Rating:
I used it in Sumaco, Podocarpus and Mindo area in Ecuador in 2003 while working on Golden-winged Manakin display behavior stuff... and this was a perfect book!... illustrations use the page space very well, love that!...
Useful but too bulky
Rating:
Actually, this is volume 2 of a set of two books. But it is this volume that is meant to be taken to the field. For the first time, there is a full set of very useful color plates for one of the core South American countries. It is certainly a great accomplishment to have all the species pictured in color and on a more or less consistent standard. However, I do not agree with other reviewers who rave about the plates. Too many of the bird pictures have an overall flat appearance, with the color rendition being too simplistic or too bold. And while a good number of the birds are depicted in good or even in unnecessarily large size, others would have benefitted from a larger sized rendition. Just because a species is small does not mean it has to be depicted in a diminutive size, unless there are larger species of the same group on the plate. Thus, while the plates are most useful, it is nevertheless disappointing to see that the overall standard (except for the plates being all in color) is rather lower than what was already published decades ago e.g. in "Birds of Colombia".
The book has excellent range maps and very helpful comprehensive texts. However, a somewhat more compact layout would have allowed for a smaller overall size of the book. The way to do it is being demonstrated in the book itself. The texts facing the plates use the suggested compact layout most convincingly. Spanish bird names are given in the main text, but, unfortunately, there is no index for them.
(This is an adapted review I originally published in 2002 for the so-called slipcased two-volume edition. As it concerned the fieldguide, but disappeared, here it is again.)
Ecuador is a paradise for birdwatchers
Rating:
The book is an excellent guide. I could see the pictures and description of the birds I was lucky to see in my last trip to Ecuador.
The field guide that is not a field guide
Rating:
This is an exhaustive book with brilliant drawings - but not a field guide. Forget what the publishers say about two volumes and this one being the field guide. It's hideously impractical. It's over 700 pages, thicker than your fist, and a HEAVY load to be lugging around and getting it into an out of your backpack, especially when hiking or navigating slippery jungle trails in the sweltering heat. That said, I don't know of any other field guide and let's face it, we birders need a field guide. As many others I have had the plates with the drawings taken out and bound into a 'new' book, and brought only that with me. It's suboptimal, but hey, what can you do.
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