Birding Book Club: Guides to Mexico and Central America
June 17, 2021
It’s time for the American Birding Podcast Birding Book Club and host Nate Swick welcomes bird media reviewers Frank Izaguirre from the ABA’s Birding magazine and Donna Schulman from the website 10,000 Birds to finally tackle birding’s great contribution to world literature, the field guide. We start with guides to Mexico and Central America, popular destinations for US and Canada birders and a great place to begin the discussion about what makes a good field guide and who and what field guides are for.
Help support the ABA and the American Birding Podcast by contributing to our Nesting Season Appeal.
Books discussed in this episode:
Angehr, George R. (author); Robert Dean (illus)—The Birds of Panama: A Field Guide (Zona Tropical Publications)
Angehr, George R., Dodge Engleman, & Lorna Englema—A Bird-Finding Guide to Panama
ChavarrÃa-Duriaux, Liliana (author), David C. Hille (author); Robert Dean (illus.)—Birds of Nicaragua
Clark, William S. & N. John Schmitt (illus.)—Raptors of Mexico and Central America
Fagan, Jesse (author); Komar, Oliver (author); Dean, Robert (Illus);Burke Peter (Illus)—Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Northern Central America Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
Gallardo, Robert with illustrations by John Sill, Michael DiGiorgio, Ian Griffiths—Guide to the Birds of Honduras
Garrigues, Robert (author); Robert Dean (artist) —The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide (Zona Tropical Publications), 2nd ed.
Howell, Steve N.G. & Sophie Webb—A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America
Howell, Steve N.G. — A Bird-Finding Guide to Mexico (Comstock Books)
O’Donnell, Patrick—How to See, Find, and Identify Birds in Costa Rica
Ridgely, Robert S. & John A. Gwynne (illus.)—A Guide to the Birds of Panama, With Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras, 2nd ed.
Stiles, F. Gary (author); Alexander F. Skutch (author); Dana Gardner (illus)—A Guide to the Birds of Costa RicaÂ
Vallely, Andrew C. & Dale Dyer — Birds of Central America: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama (Princeton Field Guides series)
The American Birding Podcast brings together staff and friends of the American Birding Association as we talk about birds, birding, travel and conservation in North America and beyond.
Join host Nate Swick every other Thursday for news and happenings, recent rarities, guests from around the birding world, and features of interest to every birder.
Hi, Nate,
With regard to general books about birding the tropics, you can’t go wrong with Steve Hilty’s Birds of Tropical America. It’s the perfect book before your first trip south of the border and well worth reading again every few years.
PS After 40+ years of birding I do more reading about than actual birding but I look forward to the podcast weekly.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Sam, I have that book! It’s great–in some sense like Kricher’s Neotropical Companion but just for birds. I think of it more as having more of a South American emphasis, but you’re right that it applies for all the Neotropics and therefore is relevant to Mexico and Central America too.
Also, you probably already know this, but Steven Hilty just had a new field guide to the birds of Colombia come out from Lynx.
I enjoyed this episode, and it reminded me that my wife found an old copy of a Guatemalan bird guidebook. The book was published in 1970 as a contribution to the Pan-American Section of the International Committee for Bird Preservation (see the attached photo). I looked again at this book after listening to the episode, and noted that (as Frank mentioned) the guide includes the names of the birds used locally, so it gets a plus for that! The forward of the book mentions “there is no other book available describing all the birds of Guatemala”, and also mentions that… Read more »
Wow, that’s cool!
Peter, this is super cool–I did not know of this book and will see if I can pick up a copy. Thank you.