A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies

Rating:
Summary: Bravo
Review: As an interpreter of the Caribbean National Forest this book help me to point out the species of birds that come to this forest. It is helpful for school work because it gives the endemics plates for all the major Islands. Great as a field guide. Excellent photos.

Rating:
Summary: A must for the serious birder in the West Indies
Review: I am a wildlife biologist and the manager of a nature preserve in the northeastern US where I regularly lead bird walks. When travelling on vacation birding is a major interest; on a recent visit to the Dominican Republic this bird guide was indispensable. The illustrations were first rate and the text most informative. I was especially impressed with the "Locality Index" which helped immensely with the process of confirming the identification of several "life" birds. Having this local information at one's fingertips makes this book an extremely valuable and important work. I hope Mr. Raffaele's book will influence the format of future ornithological publications.

Rating:
Summary: A must for the serious birder in the West Indies
Review: I am a wildlife biologist and the manager of a nature preserve in the northeastern US where I regularly lead bird walks. When travelling on vacation birding is a major interest; on a recent visit to the Dominican Republic this bird guide was indispensable. The illustrations were first rate and the text most informative. I was especially impressed with the "Locality Index" which helped immensely with the process of confirming the identification of several "life" birds. Having this local information at one's fingertips makes this book an extremely valuable and important work. I hope Mr. Raffaele's book will influence the format of future ornithological publications.

Rating:
Summary: More of a reference book than field guide
Review: Just slightly smaller than 8.5 x 11 inch letter size with 500 pages and an inflexible, non-weather resistant cover, this book is too big and rigid to fit in anything other than a back-pack. It's not a quick reference field guide than you can quickly pop out of your coat pocket, and you'll ruin it if it gets caught in an otherwise lovely tropical drizzle. Additionally the way the book is organized does not facilitate quick on-the-fly identifications, the very kind that you most frequently need in the field. For instance, the first 200 plus pages contain color plates of the birds (86 full page plates in total, each containing between 1 and 15 species). If you open the book flat you're looking at the color plate on the right page and a numbered list of the birds on the left giving common name, biological name, size in centimeters and inches and a page reference number. It's this last point - page reference number - where A GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF THE WEST INDIES really shows up its weakness in the field. The range and distribution maps, distinguishing characteristics, flight, voice, habitat and nesting information; basically all the data you'll need to pin down a firm sighting, are all on a different page than the birds picture. This information comprises the second half of the book.

Birders will have the same problem with this book as we do with all those guides that present illustrations and/or photographs of the bird on one page and it's range map and other vital information somewhere else. A typical example. The bird takes to the air. From the glimpse we get we know it's a hummingbird with green back and white underparts. The most likely candidate we come up with is a female Streamertail. Fine, except that once we flip to the back and read about range we realize the Streamertail in endemic to Jamaica and we're still in Puerto Rico; I guess it did look more like a female Antillean Mango afterall! It's worse with warblers, flycatchers, and especially vireos. There is much flipping back and forth between pictures and descriptions, particularly so for novice birders who may not be familiar with endemics and the very limited ranges that are major factors to be aware of when dealing with bird species in islands.

This book is very colorful and informative and very up to date. It's just not very well laid out for work in the field. I wish I could be more helpful by recommending another book but unfortunately there are issues with most of the regional guides. Rather than a West Indian guide you may want to use island specific ones (some available locally) for your field trips and leave this one in the hotel for detailed reference later.

Rating:
Summary: A good comprehensive fieldguide
Review: This book is an excellent field guide. The descriptions are great and the colourplates are high quality. The book includes plates which features endimic species from the largest islands - a very valuable part of the book. Another fine thing is the locality index. The index is a great help when identifying species on localities where you have never been before. For my part I used the book on my first trip ever to Cuba, and I will bring the book with me again if I ever returns to Cuba. The text is very informative and descriptions of both juvenil and adult birds are included which is a great help. Furthermore the illustrations are very good. The book have a size that makes it possible to use it in the field. The only problem as far as I can see is that it could have been usefull with more illustrations e.g. more flying raptors, ducks and waders. All in all: A book worth using and buying.

Rating:
Summary: It is the Bible for birding in the West Indies
Review: This book is THE authority in the region. Yes, it is a heavy little sucker, and no, it is not a field guide per-se, but this book has so much useful information for the serious birder (not the coffee-table birder, but the take-it-to-the-toilet-with-you-to-read birder) that these handicaps are largely overcome.

Though recent hyperactivity by taxonomists and ornithologists working the region have made just a tiny teensy bit of the info in the book outdated, it is still a must-have for the no-nonsense Caribbean birder.

Rating:
Summary: Problem with the book's scope.
Review: This is an excellent book. There are many good-quality color plates and the information is current and accessible. My complaint about the book is the misleading title. The islands of Trinidad and Tobago are not included in the book's geographic coverage. Trinidad and Tobago are certainly in the West Indies. The reason they are not included in this book is actually the very reason that the bird fauna of these islands is so interesting: Trinidad and Tobago have a combination of more northern species found in the upper islands as well as South American species that have emigrated from Venezuela and further south. There is another book by Ffrench (strange spelling) that specifically covers the birds of Trinidad and Tobago.

Rating:
Summary: Problem with the book's scope.
Review: This is an excellent book. There are many good-quality color plates and the information is current and accessible. My complaint about the book is the misleading title. The islands of Trinidad and Tobago are not included in the book's geographic coverage. Trinidad and Tobago are certainly in the West Indies. The reason they are not included in this book is actually the very reason that the bird fauna of these islands is so interesting: Trinidad and Tobago have a combination of more northern species found in the upper islands as well as South American species that have emigrated from Venezuela and further south. There is another book by Ffrench (strange spelling) that specifically covers the birds of Trinidad and Tobago.