Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago

[FunkyGibbon]

A new birding guide for Indonesia was published late last year, but seems to have slipped under the radar on ZooChat (which is reasonable, as this isn't a birding forum).

It covers all of Indonesia apart from West Papua. Previously western Indonesia was covered by Mackinnon's Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Bali, and the eastern part of the country (Sulawesi, the Mollucas and the lesser Sunda islands) was covered by Coates' Guide to the Birds of Wallacea. There are also two highly regarded books covering solely Borneo.

I don't own Coates because it costs one hundred and eighty pounds sterling on Amazon, second hand! I do own Mackinnon and it does the job, but it really pales in comparison to all the other guides I have. The plates and descriptions are in seperate sections, which is a fairly disastrous layout, and there are no maps. It also has started splitting at the spine after just one trip's use. It's just not a fun book to own.

The new book therefore is dropping into a marketplace which will put up very little opposition. It costs sixty pounds, which is still pretty steep, but this may come down if and when a paperback edition is released. The review below suggests that it is a little heavy for field work, which is easy to imagine given its scope, but I think those of us who do 'bird out of a backpack' will find it well within our capacity. It is produce by Lynx, and apparently reuses many of the illustrations from Handbook of the Birds of the World.

I will probably buy this when I next go to Wallacea. The price at the minute is hard to justify without actually "needing" to own it.

If anyone already owns a copy or has seen one first hand I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

10,000 Birds | Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas and Wallacea–A Field Guide Review

 

[Hix]

I considered purchasing this when it came out, but as I'm saving for a holiday I thought it best to wait until I return. It looks to be a brilliant book.



Hix

 

[Chlidonias]

I actually saw this when I was at Kaeng Krachan. The birding couple I was hanging out with had it with them because they'd just been in Sumatra. I obviously didn't give it a thorough read-through, more of a brief rummage-through.

It is really good, and definitely a good purchase. The pictures seemed to all be from HBW but having read the review that is just because they are the same HBW artists which have produced new illustrations. They are excellent and the book looks amazing. Much much better than the old Greater Sundas guide, for example.

I don't think it would be a problem to carry it in the field, it's not really that heavy. Certainly the Coates book for Wallacea was too heavy to do so. I have no idea why they never produced a slim volume of just the plates. Before my first Indonesian trip I made annotated lists for each island and just carried the relevant list on me while birding, and the book stayed at the guesthouse. If I needed to I would consult it in the evening. Some of the illustrations in the Coates book were pretty rubbish too.

My main (well, only) issue with the new book is that it is very heavy on splitting. Just about every island race of hair-crested drongo is split as a full species, for example. And while I never looked at the Index in the copy I saw, from the review that sounds like a bit of a nightmare to use.

 

[LaughingDove]

I considered buying that when it came out too (though haven't, again because other things took priority of limited funds for buying field guides). I wonder if the taxonomy used in this is the same as in the new Passerines Illustrated Checklist of the Bird of the World since it's also published by Lynx.

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

I only bought my copy yesterday ... as I do frequently travel to Indonesia.

I really have not yet had the chance to even unwrap it and get an overall impression of the book as it is. I can only say the cover art work promises alot (and apparently it is so sought after that it has been available for purchase on and off). My local naturalist bookstore had it in stock second time around the other day when I was enquiring about the status of a book I had on order with them. And with off-chance unplanned visits to - well not entirely ... as I was on the go for a book on the birds of the Sahel or Western Africa ... -, I could not help looking at it and knowing the quality of all Lynx publications and having personally experienced my previous South East Asian bird books Always left something to be desired (by not covering a particular patch ...), this is the true goods for Indonesia by all accounts.

I will do a short critical review when I have had the chance to look over the book later in the week!

 

[lintworm]

I wonder if the taxonomy used in this is the same as in the new Passerines Illustrated Checklist of the Bird of the World since it's also published by Lynx.

It is apparently slightly different then the checklists in terms of taxonomy.