- Hardcover: 504 pages
- Publisher: New Holland Publishers Ltd (1 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1853683132
- ISBN-13: 978-1853683138
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,750,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This field guide to the birds of South-East Asia details the identification, voice, breeding, status, habitat and distribution of the 1250 species and distinctive sub-species of the region covering Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, West Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
About the Author
Craig Robson has travelled regularly to South-east Asia for the last 20 years, having seen and studied more bird species of that region than anyone else in Europe. He helped launch the thriving Oriental Bird Club and served on the Council of the OBC for 5 years, writing numerous papers in their journal during that time. Craig is based in Norfolk, England. A selection of leading artists, all of them specialists in their fields, have been specially commissioned to provide the full-colour identification plates. The artists include Richard Allen, Hilary Burn, Clive Byers, Daniel Cole, John Cox, Antony Disley, Martin Elliott, Mike Langman, Ian Lewington, Andrew Mackay, Stephen Message, Chris Schmidt, Jan Wilczur and Tim Worfolk.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Between February and April 2006 I tested my copy in the field while birding in Laos: It is an excellent field guide! It is very practical: plastic cover, compact and light enough for field use, texts and illustrations facing each other, good descriptions of species, relevant sub-species, voices, habitats and ranges. In addition the illustrations by 14 different artists are generally good to very good. I recorded about 160 species in two months and was able to easily identify several species new to me thanks to the good quality of the illustrations and the text.
One day while birding around Vientiane my Robson's field guide fell into the mud by accident. It was instantly covered with mud but thanks to its plastic cover, I could easily clean it and continue to use it as before. Most field guides don't automatically come with such a plastic cover and would be permanently damaged in similar circumstances!
I have used some other top quality field guides in other regions of the world: Collins Bird Guide by Mullarney, Svensson, Zetterström and Grant (1999) in Europe, Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (2003) in USA, Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Stevenson and Fanshawe (2002) in Kenya and Pocket Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Grimmet, Inskipp and Inskipp (2001) in Nepal, among others. By comparison I find this new version of Birds of South-east Asia excellent! Describing 1270 species with so much text and so many good illustrations in such a compact field guide is a major achievement! However, some may complain that it uses the Sibley & Monroe taxonomic order and that species distributions are described only in the text without distribution maps. But the lack of maps - that would be inaccurate anyway - obviously enabled to insert more useful information for each species.
Overall, it is an excellent, up-to-date and handy field guide for birding in South-east Asia (it is even smaller than Birds of Thailand by the same author!). A real top quality field guide for the region covering Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Congratulations to the author and the illustrators! Good value for money but be aware of the possible confusion between the 3 successive versions of this book. The first and more comprehensive version of this guide - excellent reference but bigger and less practical in the field - was already called "A Field Guide to the Birds of South-east Asia" (Craig Robson, 2000). For this new smaller and handier version just ensure that you buy the 304-page version "Birds of South-east Asia" published in 2005 and not the 504-page version published in 2000 (hardcover) or in 2002 (softcover).
One day while birding around Vientiane my Robson's field guide fell into the mud by accident. It was instantly covered with mud but thanks to its plastic cover, I could easily clean it and continue to use it as before. Most field guides don't automatically come with such a plastic cover and would be permanently damaged in similar circumstances!
I have used some other top quality field guides in other regions of the world: Collins Bird Guide by Mullarney, Svensson, Zetterström and Grant (1999) in Europe, Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (2003) in USA, Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Stevenson and Fanshawe (2002) in Kenya and Pocket Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Grimmet, Inskipp and Inskipp (2001) in Nepal, among others. By comparison I find this new version of Birds of South-east Asia excellent! Describing 1270 species with so much text and so many good illustrations in such a compact field guide is a major achievement! However, some may complain that it uses the Sibley & Monroe taxonomic order and that species distributions are described only in the text without distribution maps. But the lack of maps - that would be inaccurate anyway - obviously enabled to insert more useful information for each species.
Overall, it is an excellent, up-to-date and handy field guide for birding in South-east Asia (it is even smaller than Birds of Thailand by the same author!). A real top quality field guide for the region covering Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Congratulations to the author and the illustrators! Good value for money but be aware of the possible confusion between the 3 successive versions of this book. The first and more comprehensive version of this guide - excellent reference but bigger and less practical in the field - was already called "A Field Guide to the Birds of South-east Asia" (Craig Robson, 2000). For this new smaller and handier version just ensure that you buy the 304-page version "Birds of South-east Asia" published in 2005 and not the 504-page version published in 2000 (hardcover) or in 2002 (softcover).
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Robson has taken on the monumentous task first tackled by Ben King thirty years ago; to produce a guide to all the birds of South- East Asia, and he's as good as pulled it off! I used this book on the standard Thai circuit during 4 weeks of early 1999. First of all I would say that the book fails to live up to it's title "A Field Guide......" It should have been designed with use in the field as its prime concern, disappointingly this aspect was not that successful. I left my Rounds Guide to the Birds of Thailand in someones car at Heathrow and that was a mistake. Secondly the lack of distribution maps at all, let alone next to the plates, made the successful identification of unfamiliar birds a slow process, it was my first time to South-East Asia so there were plenty of them! I found having to read distribution notes first very slow and frustrating. Thirdly Robson chose to follow Sibley and Monroe's taxonomy, the rights and wrongs of which are not for this review, however again this slowed down my task of identifing a bird quickly in the field and no one else on our trip was totally familiar with this classification. So why 4 stars? The plates are on the whole superb, particularly Christopher Schmidt's glorious Thrushes,Redstarts and Flycatchers, Stephen Message's Babblers and Scimitar and Wren Babblers and Clive Byers's brilliant Pittas and Laughingthrushes, just look at Spotted and Blue-winged. Hilary Burn's Owls are exquisite. Perhaps as skilfully completed is the scholarly text. Robson is a giant of the South-East Asian birding scene and it shows. The small text in the species accounts is a mine of information, 100% up-to-date and unbelievably detailed making identification of those female Ficedula's an eventual formality. This alone is enough to make it excellent value for money. Dispite my preceding criticism I would say that this book is indispensable on a field trip but is best left in the car, hotel room or tent. It would also come into it's own in the other less visited or well described areas in the region that this book covers where no smaller quicker to use guide exists.If you're going to these facinating lands of almost mythical birds no other guide comes close - buy it.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I wanted one field guide that would cover Thailand and Cambodia, and this is the only choice. The plates are just big enough for clarity and to show differential details between species; the information on distribution by area and season was again enough to work from - and better than using more space for maps that would have been far too generalised. To get this much into so small a book and make it so useful is a job well done. Recommended.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A brilliant guide and better without maps
Many reviewers complain of the lack of maps in this excellent guide. I disagree entirely (and I do a great deal of birding around the world, using regional guides) This is one of... Read more
Published 5 months ago by mrs andrea h lowe
A field guide to the birds of South East Asia
A field guide to a birds of South-East Asia is a excellent product. It provides all informations for a clear bird identification. Read more
Published 7 months ago by ambrogio lamesta
Good identification field guide but somewhat lacking in maps and...
I classify myself as a "bad" birdwatcher rather than a twitcher but enjoy viewing birds in my travels round the world. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Dr. I. Cox
Good pics, but needs maps
On the plus side, I would say that the pictures are good and it's nice to get all the birds from this large and varied region into a guide that is perfectly useable in the field. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Stephen Vaughan
ticks all the boxes
Still to use this field guide in the field as my holiday was cancelled, but I can say this about the book the artwork is very good perhapes not up to the standard of the new... Read more
Published on 24 April 2010 by Stephen
Fits the bill !
The art work is good, and the book fits the pocket and appears well bound.
The shear number of bird species and the need for portability - it is a field guide - means there is... Read more
The shear number of bird species and the need for portability - it is a field guide - means there is... Read more
Published on 10 Nov 2009 by J. Donaldson
A complete field and reference guide fully updated
An essential guide to the region (covering Thailand, peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar), very useful in the field and as a reference work as well. Read more
Published on 31 Oct 2009 by Luis Mario Arce
Shortcoming and strengths
An attractive looking book but is suited more as a reference book than a field guide due to it's weight. I'm afraid the lack of maps is a major omission - whether I'm in S. Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2009 by C. Walford
Good compact guide, pleased with purchase
Once you get used to the abbreviated terminology this book is an excellent companion for trips to SE Asia. Read more
Published on 11 Feb 2009 by L. Bedlow
Top guide for SE Asian birds
This is a very comprehensive fieldguide covering 1251 species with 104 excellent colour plates plus text for each species. Read more
Published on 22 May 2002 by N U Corbet
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