Birds: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore (Sun Tree Notebooks) [Paperback]

Basics: 1999, flex-cover, 258 pages, 290 species in color photos, no range maps

Covering almost half of the birds (290 of 638) found on the Malaysia/Singapore peninsula, this photo guide offers one medium-sized (2 x 2-inch) color photograph of each bird. Although some of the subjects are small, they are typically well lit and show the bird clearly. Most of the photos are of birds with little sexual dimorphism or of the breeding male. This limitation combined with only 45% of the region's birds depicted means you should regard this book as an introduction to the peninsula's birds and not as a strong field guide. The book will also serve as a good practice source, at least for the one plumage that may be illustrated.

The brief text consists of three segments: Description, Distribution, and notes on habits, habitat, and voice. This information is generally good but may not always be useful to distinguish the bird from a similar species.

There are two quirks about this book that make it a little awkward to use. One, the birds are grouped into five different habitat types. This causes related species to be scattered across the book. If you want to look at the Little Pied Flycatcher and the Asian Brown Flycatcher in the book, under which habitat type should you look for each: "Montane Rainforest" or "Gardens and Parks"? If you're not familiar with the bird's habitat preference, you must look up the bird in the index, which leads to the second quirk.

The index can list several page numbers next to each bird, but only one brings you to the photo and text. The others pages refer you to merely a mention of the bird in an introduction or in another species's account . Bolding the page number containing the photo would have been very helpful.

A nice addition to the book is an introduction to each of the five habitat types. These introductions are 5-10 pages long and include locations, directions to, and maps of birding locations. Another 41 pages begin this book and nicely cover topics of breeding, migration, birding techniques, ringing, and photography.

There are other complete field guides for this region, but there are few photographic guides. This is one of the better photo books which competes with two others by the same author and by Davison & Fook.

I've listed several related books below...
1) A Field Guide to the Birds of West Malaysia and Singapore by Jeyarajasingam/Pearson
2) A Photographic Guide to Birds of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore by Davison/Fook
3) Birds of Singapore by Hails/Jarvis
4) Birds of Fraser's Hill (Malaysia): An Illustrated Guide and Checklist by Strange
5) Birds of Taman Negara (Malaysia): An Illustrated Guide and Checklist by Strange/Yong
6) Birds of Thailand by Robson
7) A field guide to the birds of South-East Asia by King
8) A Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia by Robson
9) A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia by Strange