Mexican Birds

Exelent book and excellent price. Shipper was prompt and have only praise for their service

As an avid North American Birder, I needed a Field Guide like this one since I'll be traveling on the Yucatan during January. The illustrations are very detailed and the species write-ups are thorough. I never expected to have the thrill of birding in Mexico and this short trip is a dream come true. This Bird Field Guide will be with me every minute of the trip.

As someone new to birdwatching I needed to find some good field guides at several points on my recent World Cruise and I bought Peterson's Mexican Birds to use for my visit to two points in Mexico. I found this a quite impressive book, considering the fact that it covers over 1000 species in such a small book, but it is perhaps too concise. The illustrations are good, with arrows showing distinguishing points to look for with closely related species. But all illustrations are in a separate section from the main desctiption and many show only the bird's head. Many birds are not shown and the reader needs to look in one of Peterson's other (US) guides Also, there are no maps, just short defintions of the ranges. It is not a full field guide and does not give details of habitat but it can be used for identification. (I already had Western Birds which filled the gaps for me.) As Mexico has so many bird species I suspect that this is the best that can be produced in a book of pocket size. I would recommend it as a handy pocket guide to take in the field. For longer use in Mexico the reader may need a supplementary source of fuller details. It is certainly excellent value for money.

This Peterson Guide to Mexican Birds is very beautiful in the illustration category. However, it is not the most complete guide on the market. I would solely recommended the Western Guide to Birds, since it is the most complete bird guide yet. Birds of Britain and Europe is also needed to complete Mexican Birds. The authoritative highlight of the guide are the extensive listings of hummingbirds. This book covers at least twenty species. Other families and genus are mentioned, but many are lacking. The Western Guide to Bird Nests may also be needed to better explain and complete this.

Although this book is up to Peterson standards it only contains the birds in Mexico not found in the North American guide. For example this book contains no shore birds. If you are out bird watching in Mexico you will need to bring both books.