A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Jamaica
| Date: 15 April 2011, 15:21
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Of the many small photo guides to have come out over the past five years, I like the format of this one the best. The success of this book is the larger, multiple photos of each bird. The quality, color, and lighting of every bird are very good as well.
This book contains 488 photos of 220 species that regularly occur on Jamaica. Nearly all of these birds are shown with more than one photo. Each of the 30 endemic species has at least two photos, many have up to four. The color and poses in each of the four shots of the Jamaican Tody are stunning. An excellent sampling of photos is also given for each of the three Myiarchus flycatchers which display the key identification points quite well. You can see the pale base to the mandible or the shading differences in the wing bars.
The amount of text for each bird varies between migrants and residents, with the latter receiving the most. The information is about one-half page with 60-80% of it focused on identification, description, and similar species. This information does a good job at pointing out key features of the similar species. The rest of the text covers voice as well as habitat and behavior.
I was glad to see range maps included for each bird. These maps use dark and light shadings of three different colors (green, yellow, blue) to represent common and uncommon status as a resident, summer visitor, or winter visitor. The maps do a good job at showing some detail, trying to follow geographic features or habitat; however, it would have been helpful to include a few dots to represent some cities/towns as reference.
A 31-page section at the beginning of the book does a nice job of giving a thorough overview of Jamaica's geomorphology, habitat types, avifauna, altitudinal movements, and general information for birders.
This book is a vast improvement on the already good book by Sutton/Downer of 1990. The photos are of higher quality, are larger with a greater number for each bird, and cover all of Jamaica's regular birds. Although I normally prefer and recommend an illustrated guide over a photo guide for field use, this book will easily aid you in all your identification needs across the island.
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