Editorial Review:
"Graced with bounteous natural beauty, a stable democratic government, and friendly citizens, Costa Rica has become a popular destination for travelers from all over the world. Birds play a prominent role in attracting visitors, too. The shimmering quetzals, gaudy macaws, and comical toucans only begin to hint at the impressive avian diversity to be found throughout this small country."--from the Introduction This is the one field guide the novice or experienced birder needs to identify birds in the field in the diverse habitats found in Costa Rica. It features descriptions and illustrations of more than 820 resident and neotropical migrant species found in Costa Rica, all in a compact, portable, user-friendly design. The detailed full-color illustrations show identifying features--including plumage differences among males, females, and juveniles--and views of birds in flight wherever pertinent. Additional features of this all-new guide include: o 166 original color plates depicting more than 820 species. o Concise text that describes key field marks for positive identification, as well as habitat, behavior, and vocalizations. o Range maps and texts arranged on opposing pages from illustrations for quick, easy reference. o The most up-to-date bird list for Costa Rica. o A visual guide to the anatomical features of birds with accompanying explanatory text. o Quick reference to vultures and raptors in flight.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
The Birds of Costa Rica, a field guide. R. Garrigues & R. Dean  2009-01-09
For a brief (portable) guide it's VERY good. Containes important tips and information regarding bird habitat and habits. Very good illistrations and descriptions with bolded highlights. Good general map/range of territory where birds would be expected to be found.
Just what's needed  2008-12-25
I used the Stiles and Skutch book for years, but could hardly wait for this guide to come out. It was definitely worth the wait. The S&S book has a serious problem with outdated scientific names and classifications. These things shift constantly as new evidence comes to light, so they have to be kept up to date, which Richard Garrigues does well.
This, plus the Official List of Birds to Costa Rica, published by the Costa Rican Ornithological Association, provide a good field guidebook and the latest checklist to record sightings. These two together are what all birders need for their Costa Rica vacation.
Janet May
Best Costa Rican Bird Field Guide 2008-08-04
I purchased this book among others prior to taking a summer birding tour to Costa Rica. This is the book you will, currently, need to take with you!!! Don't even hesitate to purchase this one if you are going to be doing some serious birding.
Another nice supplemental bird book is the Hummingbirds of Costa Rica; I know it is a large book (not a field guide) but the information and photography of the hummingbirds is extremely helpful to study. Another essential edition is A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by Stiles and Skutch.
Great book for field identification... 2008-06-16
This book is well illustrated and well laid out for identifying the birds of Costa Rica both in and out of the field. It's compact and fairly light weight which makes it ideal to tote around the jungle. It can easily fit in the large pocket of any cargo short or pant as well. I would also recommend buying this book from Amazon before or after your trip to Costa Rica. Buying it in Costa Rica will prove to be much more expensive. We saw it priced between $30 and $45 in various parts of Costa Rica. But never less than $30...
The new Costa Rica bird guide - perfect for the field! 2008-06-05
Written by the two foremost authorities on the subject, and long the standard field guide, A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Comstock) is now almost 20 years old and showing its age. For the past decade, there has been a clear need for a new edition of the book to incorporate recently recorded species, modernise taxonomy and bring distributional information up-to-date. And since most visiting birders take issue with weight, preferring to carry the excised plates alone (despite the relative strength of the text), any attempt to reduce the size of a new edition would have been welcomed.
Here we have not a new edition of Stiles & Skutch, but what the author prefers to call an alternative. The first feature most visitors will enjoy is the reduction in bulk. My old guide weighs about 1kg (2.2 lbs) and needs to be carried in a pack, whereas Garrigues & Dean is just shy of 600g (1.4 lbs) and will fit in a medium-sized coat pocket. Secondly, the plates face the text, so there is no need to flip between the two. Maps are provided along side the text, reducing the need for the detailed range descriptions that are often so confusing to the visitor. The text itself is more concise than the earlier guide and emphasises identification features - something that Stiles & Skutch did not do. As for the plates, they are a marked improvement on the old illustrations. They have clearly been painted with care and diligence and are much more useful in distinguishing similar species than the previous artwork - all credit to the artist! Boreal migrants, such as shorebirds, thrushes, swallows and warblers, are illustrated which means that one can for the first time just get by without a North American field guide - though given the difficulty in identifying these groups, it would be wiser to carry a North American guide too. And, of course, the guide is pretty well up-to-date on bird names, following AOU taxonomy.
Does the new guide supersede Stiles & Skutch? Not really, but perhaps that does not matter. This is now the guide that most birders will want to take in the field. Well organised, portable and with accurate illustrations, it is the guide that birding visitors and general travellers have been waiting for all these years. Nevertheless, for the moment at least, birders and naturalists will also want to have a copy of Stiles & Skutch, even if it stays back at the hotel - or even back home. The text of Stiles & Skutch contains so much diligently compiled and fascinating natural history information that it remains far from obsolete.
At a time when so many neotropical avifaunas are treated in two volume works - a "field guide" and a "species accounts" or "distribution" tome - one might view Birds of Costa Rica in the same light. Garrigues & Dean is the field guide, while Stiles & Skutch provides the non-essential detail. Both will be accompanying me on my next trip to Costa Rica in a month's time.
Chris Sharpe, 5 June 2008. ISBN: 080147373X
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