:: Southeast Asia
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Singapore, Vietnam.
The Scoop
Craig Robson’s Birds of Southeast Asia (Princeton Field Guides) (ISBN 978-0-691-12435-3) is the best, most comprehensive guide to the birds of peninsular Southeast Asia. It was published first in the UK as Birds of South-East Asia
by New Holland Publishers (ISBN 978-1-84330-746-4).
The guide illustrates “all 1,270″ species known to occur in Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. Nonetheless, it is slim and easily portable, though not exactly pocket-sized. Illustrations are very good overall, with a few exceptions (e.g., the fantails look strangely deformed). Species accounts, which occur on the pages facing the illustrations, contain information on various plumages, subspecies, habitat, voice, etc. There are no range maps; instead, a system of codes and abbreviations is employed to convey status and range. This is daunting at first, but I assume that it would become second nature with repeated use.
Also Consider
Birds of Southeast Asia (described above) is a condensation and reorganization of A Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia (ISBN 978-0-691-05012-6). The guide is a larger, heavier, hardcover volume with the plates separated from the species accounts. It doesn’t contain range maps either. If you already own Birds of Southeast Asia (the newer, compact edition described above), and want an additional resource, this volume might be worth it for the lengthier species accounts (but note that the illustrations are the same).
This book was published in the UK as A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia (Hardback)
(ISBN 978-1-85368-313-8) and later as A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia (Paperback)
(ISBN 978-1-84330-118-9). Again, despite the words “field guide” in the title, the newer, more compact versions discussed in “The Scoop” section above are better for use in the field, and the larger, older volumes are something you might consider for an additional reference.
Morton Strange’s A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia: Including the Philippines and Borneo (Princeton Field Guides) (ISBN 978-0-691-11494-1) might be interesting as a second or third reference, but you should not attempt to use it as a primary field guide to the birds of the region.
This article was updated on February 2, 2008.
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David J. Ringer
