By William S Clark, illustrated by N John Schmitt | Princeton University Press | Paperback | April 2017 | 304 Pages | 213 Colour Photos | 64 Colour Maps | ISBN: 9780691116495
The Publisher’s View:
* Covers all 69 species of raptors found in Mexico and Central America
* Features 32 colour plates and hundreds of colour photos
* Provides multiple illustrations of each species
* Depicts and describes variations in plumage by individual, morph, age, and region
* Describes behavior, food preferences, hunting strategies, vocalizations, and molt
* Covers rare and extralimital species
* Includes distribution maps and flight silhouettes
Raptors are among the most challenging birds to identify in the field due to their bewildering variability of plumage, flight silhouettes, and behavior. Raptors of Mexico and Central America is the first illustrated guide to the region’s 69 species of raptors, including vagrants. It features 32 stunning colour plates and 213 colour photos, and a distribution map for each regularly occurring species.
Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, age-related plumages, status and distribution, subspecies, molt, habitats, behaviors, potential confusion species, and more.Raptors of Mexico and Central America is the essential field guide to this difficult bird group and the ideal travel companion for anyone visiting this region of the world.
Other Views: “Bird identification books are utilitarian. No matter the skill with paint brush or camera or keyboard, they are utilities. Raptors of Mexico and Central America is that and more. From Princeton University Press, this book gives you all of the utility plus over 200 pages of life histories and in many cases stunning photographs.“
– Jim Williams, Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Wingnut blog
“Accurate, comprehensive, and authoritative.“
– Sergio Seipke, Raptours
The Authors:
William S. Clark is a raptor photographer, tour guide, and lecturer, and one of the world’s leading authorities on raptors. His books include A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors and A Field Guide to the Raptors of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
N. John Schmitt is an acclaimed bird artist who specializes in birds of prey. He is the illustrator ofA Field Guide to the Raptors of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and illustrated the diurnal raptors in Birds of Peru.
Fatbirder View: I don’t quite see the purpose of this book. As a raptor ‘field-guide’ one would have thought it would cover the Caribbean too. Come to that it would not have been much of a stretch to include the few more northern America species that do not wander down to Mexico. The photos range from adequate to very nice but don’t always cover flight pictures so as an ID guide its falls short. Yes raptors can be very hard to ID when they are flying high but nothing here helps much with this. I can’t see the point of the large format not the constant repetition of, for example a section on hybridisation which mostly just says that they don’t hybridise.
I won’t go on as I clearly don’t get it – I’ll leave comment to those who do.
Fatbirder