A new field guide to the birds of Central America
- Bruce Glick: Gone Birding
- November 21, 2018
- 1634
Helen and I first lived in Central America in 1982 when we were the leaders for Goshen College students in Nicaragua. From there we moved to El Salvador and then the following year to Honduras.
During those two years, we also traveled to Guatemala, Belize and Costa Rica. At the time there were almost no field guides for the region, except for Costa Rica. There also was an old Guatemala guide and several Mexico field guides, but even those were not very helpful.
Birders especially need a field guide for the birds of El Salvador and Nicaragua, but even later publications tended to be for Mexico and Northern Central America. In Honduras I used a 1968 survey of the birds of Honduras.
That book had no photos or paintings but included information about the locations where birds had been collected over the years. That was helpful, but I sometimes had no idea what the birds looked like.
Further to the south, there were several bird books featuring the birds of Panama. Unfortunately our work never took us to Panama, except for stops at the airport on our way to South America. I’d still like to do some birding in Panama sometime.
When my work took me to Belize in the late 1970s, I took along a guide to the birds of Mexico. I also talked to one of the local birders about places to visit if I ever came back to go birding.
Since then a guide to the birds of Belize has been published. It’s an adequate field guide, containing lots of information that was not available before its publication. This is a good-sized book, and birders who visit multiple Central American countries might not take it along.
This has all changed with the publication this fall of the Princeton guide called "Birds of Central America" by Andrew Valley and Dale Dyer. This would be an outstanding bird book for any part of the world, but it is especially so for the area we call Central America.
Included are all seven countries from Guatemala and Belize to Panama. This field guide has almost 600 pages. When you open the book to any two-page spread, you will see excellent paintings on the right and detailed maps, plus lots of text on the left. The information about the birds and where to find them is amazing. As soon as I saw this book, I wanted to head for Central America.
Unfortunately the current safety situation in some Central American countries makes it imperative visitors carefully look at options for a safe trip. This may include going with a tour company that knows where it is safe to travel and look for birds.
Helen and I along with two of our daughters are heading to Belize for 10 days. This is a delayed 50th anniversary trip, arranged by our daughter Kimberly. Although it is not a birding trip, there will be birds. Tourism is thriving in this small country. I’ll have more to say about Belize when we get back.
Good birding.
Email Bruce Glick at Bglick2@gmail.com or call 330-317-7798.