Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia

Colombia has in recent years become a much safer country to visit, and is indeed now becoming an increasingly popular country for keen birders. With a bird list that is now a staggering 1,879, of which 76 are endemic and another 109 near endemic, this is hardly surprising. Hilty and Brown’s A Guide to the Birds of Colombia was published some 24 years ago and although it is still possible to find this fantastic piece of work, the taxonomy is now very dated and there have been very many new discoveries relating to the distribution and occurrence of birds in Colombia since 1986 – clearly then, there has been a need for an updated or new field guide for this amazing country for many years, and this book has been published with the aim of filling that niche. It is up-to-date, following the latest SACC taxonomy (American Ornithologists’ Union’s South American Classification Committee) and has distribution maps and illustrations of all the species currently known from Colombia including many not illustrated by Hilty & Brown, and is so compact (12.5 x 21cm) that it will probably fit into most coat pockets: Colombia’s rich avifauna has been packed into a mere 225 color plates. A Spanish version is promised soon.

The introductory pages say very little about Colombia and its birds, but unlike many field guides, contain six different maps. I often find maps inadequate in field guides but in this case I was pleasantly surprised. The maps here cover topography, political boundaries, natural vegetation types, rainfall, Endemic Bird Areas and protected areas. The last of these highlights the fantastic network of 18 (and increasing) reserves that have been purchased for bird and wildlife conservation by the Colombian NGO ProAves –together they support a staggering 1,130 bird species. I have visited 11 of these reserves during the last few years and have been very impressed with all of them and ProAves deserves huge praise and support for its ongoing efforts to conserve the birds in this species-rich country. For anyone planning to visit this superb, friendly destination, it is worth visiting the ProAves website.

With such a compact book it has obviously been impossible to include a huge amount of information and the authors have had to be ruthless in leaving out information that most field guides would usually include – they have taken an unusual approach in having no plumage descriptions or behavioral notes. Instead, each species is illustrated next to a detailed color-coded distribution map and provided with a concise habitat description. In addition, altitudinal ranges, short voice descriptions or other very brief identification notes are given for some species. In general, each species is depicted by an adult or a pair (if sexually dimorphic) though where distinctive subspecies occur one or at most two of them may be depicted. Voices are described for relatively few species (tapaculos, owls, selected nightjars, selected tyrant-flycatchers, antpittas, Chamaeza ant-thrushes, some pigeons), and I found it a little surprising that voices were not mentioned for some groups for which such descriptions would have been very useful, such as the trogons, woodcreepers and selected antbirds. The maps seem very good, though for the few species with very restricted range the localities where they occur can be quite difficult to see (near impossible in poor light) on the small maps (e.g. for the undescribed Alto PisonesTapaculo Scytalopus sp.) and the use of arrows would have been a useful edition. I like the “Index of Generic Names in English”, all on one page, which enabled me to find all the species I was looking for very rapidly. There are also lists of birds that are found on Colombia’s more important offshore islands; San Andres and Providencia, and Malpelo.

One of the things that I think this book falls short on is adequate coverage of distinctive subspecies, and apart from selected gulls, terns and raptors, there is little on immature plumages, though in the majority of cases this probably does not matter. Although the authors have included plates of subspecies where splits are likely merited, they seem to have missed some (e.g. Black-crested Antshrike Sakesphorus canadensis – the illustration of the male of which looks more like Collared Antshrike S. bernardi rather than of one of the subspecies of Black-crested Antshrike that occurs in Colombia) and for anyone interested in subspecies I would recommend taking along the much heavier but excellent Birds of Northern South America (2006, Robin Restall, Christopher Helm, London) as an additional reference. To illustrate the difference, whilst Restall lists nine subspecies of Blue-crowned Motmot Momotus momota occurring in Colombia and illustrates eight of them, the ProAves book only illustrates two of these forms, one of which (the Amazonian birds) they split as Whooping Motmot M. subrufescens following recent taxonomic revision of the group (Stiles 2009). Considering the incredible variation in Blue-crowned Motmot, it seems quite likely that some of the other taxa may also merit splitting.

Despite these inadequacies, which are quite understandable given the small size but huge scope of the book, I would definitely recommend taking this book with you to the field in Colombia. As a quick and easy reference it will certainly allow you to identify the majority of species you encounter. There will be exceptions, and I doubt if this book alone will enable you to be confident of distinguishing some of the more difficult look-a-like birds such as some of the woodcreepers or antwrens, but even with a more comprehensive guide you may still have problems. For such species you often need to rely on vocalizations which anyway cannot always be transcribed adequately. Overall then, I think the authors should be congratulated on producing a much-needed compact field guide at a critical juncture for Colombian birding. If you are in doubt about birding in this marvelous country, I hope this book will encourage you!

– Reviewed by Frank Lambert

References:

• Hilty, S.A. and Brown W.L. 1986. A Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Princeton University Press.
• Stiles, G.F. 2009. A review of the genus Momotus (Coraciiformes: Momotidae) in northern South America and adjacent areas. Ornitología Colombiana 8: 29-75

For more information and some sample plates, or to purchase, visit Proaves’ field guide page.