The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide (Zona Tropical Publications)

Garrigues & Dean (along with Cornell's Comstock Publishing) performed a virtual miracle in 2007 with the first edition of this work. Before then, birders in the field in Costa Rica had to use the superb but voluminous guide written by Stiles, Skutch & Gardner (1989), and they often resorted to separating the plates from the text for use in the field.This second edition is not so much revolution as evolution, but it does include illustrations of 64 species not previously covered. In addition, Robert Dean has replaced some species illustrations with portraits he deems improved, and he has added some "supplementary" images (in-flight, alternate plumages, etc.).The authors chose to follow the taxonomic nomenclature of Clements and a modified version of the Clements taxonomic sequence (not surprisingly retaining falcons with other diurnal raptors; inserting pigeons & doves, parrots and cuckoos between hummingbirds and trogons; and (perhaps most interesting of all) depicting the passerine swallows after the non-passerine swifts (also aerial specialists) and before the non-passerine hummingbirds). They believe these departures from taxonomic rigidity promote their goal of producing a guide that is more intuitively useful in the field, and I think they're right.Seabirds seen offshore in Costa Rican pelagic environs have been added to this second edition, as have species associated with Cocos Island (300 miles southwest of the mainland).Novice birders (and others) will appreciate the detailed descriptions & illustrations (six pages) of anatomical features (among the best I've found in any field guide). Birders new to Costa Rica and birders looking to diversify their Costa Rican birding experiences will value the brief chapter on climate and topography, including summaries of six different "life zones" and some of the ornithological features of each.Range maps are now color-coded for seasonality, and have been updated. Species illustrations are at least equal in quality to those of the first edition, and many birders would rate at least a few as improvements. Some of the brighter colors depicted on some species in my first edition seem somewhat more subdued in this new guide, but in most instances the differences are subtle.Inside the front cover (very conveniently) are images of adult vultures and raptors in flight.Congratulations to Richard Garrigues, Robert Dean and the folks at Comstock Publishing responsible for the Zona Tropical series.

Hard to fault the newest edition of the only excellent choice in field guides for birds of Costa Rica. Other reviewers have waxed on about the new illustrations, the color coded maps (que bueno!) and such. But I would have to add that I believe the authors made a poor choice to follow what appears to be S.N.G. Howell's suggestion re grouping bird families together because to the untrained eye they look like they should be related. Really? People who are going to buy this book and spend significant sums of money to visit Costa Rica cannot handle the fact that swallows and swifts are found not to be much related? To me this is a real dumbing down of their book. Worse yet, as this is done ostensibly for the novice birder, they are the ones who will be misled re taxonomy and wonder why all those other books seem to have it wrong. For those who know their birds better than I do, which includes most birders I meet, they might be irritated that their usual search method in the book is slowed down in a few cases. I also wish the authors would have done a bit more research on current range records. I don't see the Fiery-billed Aricaris that I photographed outside Cd Colon and that are listed on ebird at El Rodeo on their range map. That said, I do like very much everything else about the new edition. Worth every colon and then some. Mike Judd

Good size for field, clear illustrations and identification. Only drawback is that a few species names have changed since this was published, and it isn't the least expensive. I tried a cheaper guide first but wasn't suitable for the field, this is best option of the four guides i have seen. Held up well for two weeks of rough use.

My loves a hard copy of bird books and maps and descriptions for The Unique places we go, and she makes notes in it that help her review our trips over the years. This was the perfect book for that. Intelligently laid out, easy to find Birds, and great descriptions of locations and species. Although you can use smartphone apps like Merlin in Costa Rica, we appreciate having a book to augment the experience. My wife loved the book and I love making her happy and satisfied.

I just returned from a non-birding trip to Costa Rica, and this guide got extensive use. Even without extensive prior study (poor planning on my part) I was able to make a lot more bird IDs than I expected on this trip, in large part because of the ease of use of this guide. Illustrations, text and range maps are all clear and informative. Two features I found particularly helpful were the raptors profiles inside the front cover, and the description of the climate and topography of Costa Rica. I was able to add two IDs just because of the ease of finding this when seeing a bird of prey soar overhead. And compare to many other guides which use this space for a guide to their species accounts or a map of their geographic coverage. My trip was limited to just Guanacaste, but reading about the climate and topography helped me better understand the geography of the country and the distribution of the avifauna, and also has me thinking about plans for future visits. A great little book for anyone visiting Costa Rica with an interest in birds, whether this is their primary purpose for travelling or not.

A good guide for upcoming trip and birding in Costa Rica