Birds of Peru (Princeton Field Guides) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Thomas S. Schulenberg, Douglas F. Stotz, Daniel F. Lane, John P. O'neill, Theodore P., Iii Parker
Creator: Antonio Brack Egg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $49.50
Buy New: $32.31
You Save: $17.19 (35%)
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Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 14280
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 656
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 0691049157
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.0985
EAN: 9780691049151
ASIN: 0691049157
Publication Date: October 15, 2007
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Product Description
Nearly eighteen hundred different bird species--one fifth of the world's birds--have been recorded in Peru. Birds of Peru is the most complete and well-researched field guide to this rich and fascinating diversity. It illustrates every one of the 1,792 species and shows the distinct plumages of each. It includes 304 superb, high-quality color plates directly opposite concise descriptions and color distribution maps, making it much easier to use in the field than standard neotropical field guides. The detailed text discusses key identification features, status, distribution, and vocalizations for all species, and many subspecies. This field guide enables users to identify all species found in Peru, and is also useful throughout much of western South America, particularly southeastern Colombia, southern Ecuador, western Brazil, Bolivia, and northern Chile. Birds of Peru is an indispensable resource for birdwatchers, biologists, naturalists, and conservationists working or traveling in Peru and South America. - The most complete and well-researched field guide to the 1,792 species of birds found in Peru
- 304 superb, high-quality color plates directly opposite concise descriptions and full-color distribution maps for quick reference and easy identification
- Distinct plumages, subspecies, sexes, age classes, and morphs fully illustrated
- Detailed text discusses key identification features, status, distribution, and vocalizations
- Designed especially for field use-compact, portable, and user-friendly
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 seems great!.... June 20, 2008
not used it in the field yet, but all info looks great..detailed maps and cool (odd and kind of ugly for me) illustrations.. some huge so page space is not well used... anyways, a jewel expetected for so much time is now in our hands.... hardcover what makes it unconfirtable for the field..
The long-awaited essential guide to the Birds of Peru June 18, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
After some three decades of work, Birds of Peru was finally published last year. This is the field guide that was first conceived by ornithologists John O'Neill, Ted Parker and Larry McQueen during the LSU Peru trips of the 1970s. Residing off reliable mail routes, I only just got my hands on a copy earlier this year. I had used photographs of the draft plates of this guide for fieldwork in Peru in the 1980s and on later trips had carried a pre-publication draft, and later a commercial copy of Clements' rather unsatisfactory Field Guide to the Birds of Peru. In short, I had been eagerly awaiting the finished product for 20 years, so I was very excited to get it. Suffice to say, given the original authors, and several others that subsequently joined the team, this guide was well worth the wait.
The first innovation is that plates, maps and text for each species are found together on a single spread, eliminating the need to flip from one section of the book to another. With 1,800 species to choose from, this is a distinct help! Secondly, this guide has over 300 plates - 304 to be precise. That in itself is quite an achievement - compare 96 for Birds of Ecuador, 69 for Colombia or 67 for Venezuela. Sure enough, there are more illustrations per plate in those guides, but we are still dealing with a highly visual field guide. Boreal migrants are properly illustrated, reducing the need to carry an extra field guide to North American birds.
The plates are by a number of artists. For me, Larry McQueen's are breathtaking. Perhaps that's a question of personal taste. His large, chunky watercolours capture the essence of the bird in similar way to another favourite artist of mine, Lars Jonsson. McQueen covers some key Neotropical groups including Woodcreepers, Furnariids, Antbirds and Tyrannids, which gives these groups a stamp of authenticity. Whether this approach works in the field is something I will have to test, but I can say that they look beautiful and faithful on the page. Although the plates are never less than good, another major Neotropical family, Hummingbirds, is - to my eye - the weakest of all the plates.
The text is concise and oriented towards field identification, with minimal or no natural history data - information which adds crucial extra weight. An indication of abundance, geographical and altitudinal range and migratory status is given in the first sentence. Identification features follow. The voice descriptions are, to my ear, accurate and pleasing.
Lastly, the book is sturdily bound so it won't immediately fall a part in the field. Compared to a north temperate field guide, Birds of Peru is heavy - but then it covers three times as many species. It might have been possible to lose a little weight by eliminating some of the white space on the plates, but this is a minor observation. At the end of the day, one of the world's major avifaunas now has an excellent field guide. Essential!
Chris Sharpe, 18 June 2008. ISBN: 0691049157
 It's great, but heavy June 6, 2008
I really liked this guide, and it was clearly superior to a competitive book I found at lodges on the Amazon. Anyone planning to use this as a field guide should recognize that this hardbound weighs in at 3 pounds. Thus, one tends to use it as a desk reference rather than something you carry with you in your daypack.
The example that other field guides should be rated by May 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Of all the field guides I've seen this one is the best. Not just the best for Peru, but the best birding field guide I've seen. I wish that Princeton had someone of this teams talent do their Mexico bird guide.
The illustrations are stunning. Not too drab, not to gaudy - clean, crisp and right on target. Range maps are compactly and well presented, and the descriptions are done in "field" style rather than ornithological style.
Can't recommend it enough.
BIRDS OF PERU May 27, 2008
MASSIVE, WELL DONE; NAT. GEO. FORMAT OF SPECIES DESCRIPTION AND RANGE MAP OPPOSITE PAINTINGS OF BIRDS.
HARD COVER, LARGE, HEAVY.
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