Birds of Venezuela (Helm Field Guides) (Paperback)

The new guide is twice as thick as the 1978 edition and the text is much more closely packed. The book now weighs in at over 1.8 kg (4 lbs) and its dimensions and format are similar to the field guide volume of the Birds of Ecuador (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001). Nearly a hundred new species are treated, taking the country total to 1381. Far more species are illustrated and more colour plates have been used, though eight black and white plates have been retained to depict flying raptors and swifts. We now have 67 plates compared with the previous 53 - a 25% increase. Twenty-five of the plates are entirely new with beautiful artwork primarily by John Gwynne. The new plates cover a range of taxa, with Cracids, owls, nightjars, toucans, tanagers, Fringillids, Emberizids and Icterids particularly well covered. A further four have been adapted from Birds of Panamá (Ridgely and Gwynne 1989) and one from Birds of Colombia (Hilty and Brown 1986). The remaining 37 are basically the same Guy Tudor plates (and one by John Gwynne) from the old edition with some modifications.

The text has been entirely rewritten. The format follows and improves on the standard set by Birds of Mexico (Howell and Webb 1995) and Birds of Ecuador. The type-setting and text layout have allowed far more text to be included than, say, Birds of Ecuador and Hilty has also been precise and economical with his words. This comes as no surprise to those familiar with Hilty's earlier Birds of Colombia.

The text is far more oriented towards identification than in the old edition with sections covering identification, similar species, voice, behaviour, status and habitat, and range. The text retains the custom established by the earlier edition of separating range information by subspecies, a feature which is particularly welcome in these times of ever changing taxonomy. Range maps are another new feature and they make use of points corresponding to specimen and sight records as well as the customary shading to indicate overall range. In short, they are similar in format to those provided in Birds of Ecuador.

Finally there is a good selection of references at the end of the book and some very nice colour habitat photographs at the beginning. A well annotated locality map of the country is also provided together with colour relief and vegetation maps.

Perhaps the only drawback might be the dimensions and weight of this new guide, though this is an inevitable product of the diversity of the avifauna in question and nothing that cannot be remedied with a pair of scissors and a certain degree of irreverence.

In resumé, an essential buy for all who are interested in Neotropical ornithology and truly great value for money too.