Borneo, the world’s third largest island, is the stuff of birders’ dreams. Its lush dipterocarp forests contain some of the highest biodiversity on earth and are home to such bucket-list birds as Helmeted Hornbill, Blue-banded Pitta, and Bornean Bristlehead; and David-Attenborough-worthy mammals like orangutans and proboscis monkeys. Politically, the island is divided among the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, the Indonesian region of Kalimantan, and the small Sultanate of Brunei. Sabah in particular has developed an extensive ecotourism industry and gained renown as one of the top wildlife-watching destinations in the world.
It’s a surprise, therefore, that the island lacked a modern bird field guide prior to 2009. In that year, however, options expanded dramatically with the publication of the Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo by Quentin Phillipps and Karen Phillipps and of Birds of Borneo by Susan Myers. Myers has now followed that illustrated guide with another book, also titled Birds of Borneo (2023)—this time a photo guide in the Helm Wildlife Guide series (and in early 2026, a second edition of her illustrated guide will be published by Helm!).
Myers, a leader for WINGS Birding Tours, has guided extensively in East Asia and has also authored the Princeton Pocket Guide Wildlife of Southeast Asia. Her 2023 Birds of Borneo, while sharing a number of similarities in text and layout with her 2009 book, differs dramatically in target audience. This 2023 guide appears much more focused on the general ecotourist or all-around nature enthusiast than it does the hardcore birder. This is a good niche to fill for Borneo, where a well-developed ecotourism infrastructure makes it a popular destination for a lot more than just birds. This new target audience is most apparent in the exclusion of a large array of species included in the previous book, in the absence of range maps, and in the new book’s smaller size (the 2009 book is about 2 in. [5 cm] taller and 50 pages longer).
The introduction gives an excellent overview of the birdlife and geography of Borneo, borrowing some text from Myers’s previous guide but presenting it much more concisely. The 2023 book has also added descriptions of “Southern Borneo freshwater swamp forests” and “Kinabalu montane alpine meadows”—fantastic additions—to its habitat section. Additionally, there is a new section on “where to watch birds in Borneo”, with brief, well-written descriptions of birding sites. This is particularly valuable for the general nature enthusiast who may be less clued into the island’s many birding hotspots. And if you’re flipping through the book at home, it’s hard not to want to immediately book flights while reading about such incredible locales as Mt. Kinabalu and the Kinabatangan River!
The species accounts themselves are concise physical descriptions, often accompanied by fascinating behavioral notes. (Did you know that White-breasted Woodswallows catch insects in the air with their feet?) In lieu of range maps, Myers has included a one-sentence “Where to see,” covering status, distribution, and habitat. A tab on the margin listing the bird family depicted on each page is very helpful when quickly flipping through the book.
Some of Borneo’s more charismatic species are shown with multiple photos of the same plumage (e.g., Malaysian Rail-babbler, many pittas, Bornean Ground-Cuckoo, Bornean Bristlehead, Crested Shrikejay). This is a great way to both highlight some beautiful photos and to draw the reader towards particularly remarkable species.
As a field guide medium, photography is often criticized for the difficulty of finding photos that highlight all the field marks of the bird, and because it is harder to show a bird’s “average” features when compared to an intentional, human-made illustration. Unfortunately, Birds of Borneo is not free of these drawbacks. While most of the photos do well at depicting birds in good light and at angles that highlight salient field marks (this is particularly laudable for skulky understory species like pittas and babblers), there are a number of species for which the photo choice is quite odd. The most glaring to me was Crested Partridge. These little round birds are both adorable and unique—amongst the most distinctive species found in Borneo. And yet, the lone photo in the book appears to be of a roosting male photographed at night. The angle is strange, the lighting is poor, and you can barely make out its namesake crest! There is no photo of a female. There are other species accounts with similarly sub-optimal photo choices. For example, the Bronzed Drongo is partially obscured by a large branch, and the Sunda Cuckooshrike is depicted at an unusual angle and partially obscured by foliage. This inconsistency of photo quality has the unfortunate effect of giving the book a somewhat slap-dash feel when thumbing through it—an impression underserved by the majority of excellent photos.
As previously mentioned, the book excludes several species that were included in Myers’s 2009 book. For example, most waterfowl, shorebirds, and wintering passerines are absent. For the general wildlife watcher, it is reasonable to leave more space for the species that one would be most likely to encounter or be interested in. However, there are some unusual exclusions. For example, Hose’s Broadbill, a gorgeous Bornean endemic mostly seen in Sarawak, is not included. It seems odd to exclude one of the island’s more charismatic endemics, and it’s an even stranger decision considering that Black Oriole (another hard-to-see, endemic “Sarawak specialty”) is included. Other endemics not depicted include Friendly Bush-Warbler (despite being mentioned in the introduction) and Bornean Barbet (despite being mentioned in the species account for Blue-eared Barbet).
In the species choices, there also seems to be a bias towards the Malaysian side of the island (perhaps a reflection of Myers’ background as a guide, since almost all birding tours are on that side of the border). This is best evidenced by the exclusion of Sooty-headed Bulbul and Javan Pond-Heron, both of which are common sights in large chunks of Kalimantan but absent from Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei.
Susan Myers’s Birds of Borneo provides a quality overview of the birdlife of Borneo and does so with often mouth-watering photos. While for the serious birder, I would still recommend either her previous book or the Phillipps’ Guide, this book offers a trimmed-down, beginner-friendly option. In doing so, it fills a much-needed niche and is a good addition to the growing field guide literature for this fascinating island.
Although originally from the great city of Pittsburgh, Aidan Place is currently a master’s student at Oregon State University's College of Forestry. Much of his free time is spent either reading or birding, with a particular interest in visible migration and birding internationally
