Review: Birds of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire

written by Drew Weber

Birds of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire by Bart de Boer, Eric Newton & Robin Restall introduced me to the avian life of an area I had never paid attention to before. If you are not familiar with these islands, they are off the north coast of Venezuela in the southern part of the Caribbean Sea. The islands arose from the volcanic activity created by the collision of the South American and Caribbean tectonic plates.

A majority of the birds that call these islands home at one point or another throughout the year are also found in the US. Some of the birds are year round residents with broad ranges, while others spend the breeding season in the US and the winters on the islands.  Despite never having personally traveled to these islands, I have seen most of the birds, allowing me to get a good feel for the quality in the illustrations. Overall I am quite happy with the illustrations in the book; most of the species are depicted in life-like postures and are accurately proportioned, two of the most important components for me in a good field guide. Species such as terns, swallows and raptors are also illustrated in flight, and these are also very accurate. As far as I could tell, plumage colors were also well represented. My biggest complaint would be that the oversimplified Catharus thrush plumages, exacerbating any identification challenges between Gray-cheeked and Swainson's Thush, and possibly making Veery into a confusion species as well.

One thing that I found interesting when looking through this field guide is that some of the Neotropical migrants such as Indigo Bunting and Blue Grosbeak are not illustrated in breeding plumage, since these birds will already have molted by the time they arrive on the islands in the fall.

I would recommend this field guide if you are making a trip to this area. The small size makes it easy to slip in a daypack for quick reference. A Sibley could provide a good reference to all but a quarter of the species in the area, however it is that 25% that you are likely to find the most interesting.

• First-ever comprehensive field guide to the birds of the Lesser Antilles
• Complete coverage of the islands' bird species, including residents, migrants, and vagrants
• Close to 1,000 illustrations on 71 color plates depicting every species and all major plumages and races
• Concise text on facing pages highlights key identification features, including voice, habitat, behavior, and status

Disclaimer: Princeton University kindly provided a copy of this guide for the review.

Review: Birds of Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Central and West Pacific

written by Drew Weber

This review was contributed by Cameron Rutt, a good friend of mine who is currently in the middle of a six month stint living on the island of Laysan and working on the reintroduction program for Millerbirds.

In many respects, this book is a follow-up to “A Field Guide to the Birds of Hawaii and the Tropical Pacific” (Pratt et al. 1987), except, notably, for van Perlo’s present inclusion of New Zealand. Of this widespread and diverse region, I’ve only spent significant time in the Hawaiian Islands, and so will restrict this review to that archipelago, which, admittedly, is not entirely fair. Nevertheless, I think the book’s coverage of Hawaii will be representative for the balance of the book.

Upon receiving this guide, I was thrilled with the prospect of a current guide to the Hawaiian Islands (the Hawaiian Audubon Society’s photographic guide, “Hawaii’s Birds” (2005) - being useful as a small pocket guide for the casual birder - is certainly far from comprehensive). However, after perusing through the contents, the same desire remains, unfulfilled.

Van Perlo’s illustrations, which he, himself, recounts as being labeled “sketchy” and “loose” are just that. Although at times spot-on, there are many illustrations that come up lacking, either in detail or coloration (even misleadingly false in places). For instance, Bonin Petrels (plate 11) are not illustrated with a dark, black cap, but rather one that is gray, concolorous with the mantle. The yellow bill of his adult Masked Booby (plate 17) is entirely too bright and saturated, verging on orangey, which could cause confusion with Nazca Booby (not illustrated), which has shown up multiple times in Hawaii. Female Great Frigatebirds (plate 18) are shown with a black throat, instead of pale gray, the key feature for separating that sex from the otherwise similar female Lesser Frigatebird. The flank color of American Wigeon (plate 26) is off-base, oddly bright pinkish. And so on. Despite this, the author does attempt to illustrate various subspecies where distinguishable and includes a wealth of illustrations for certain species, particularly waterbirds. I can count no less than 20 depictions of Canada and Cackling Goose (plate 24)!

There are other textual errors or omissions which bear mentioning. Millerbirds and Nihoa Finches are labeled as occurring on Ni’ihau (which is misspelled Niihoa, a nonexistent location), instead of on Nihoa (what should be island #9 in his diagram). I’iwis are listed with a question mark on Kaua’i, a place where they are very much still in existence, simply in declining numbers. And there is no mention that Hawaiian Crows no longer exist in the wild, with the entire population currently living in captivity.

Moreover, the state of Hawaii’s honeycreepers is such that many of these birds warrant full species accounts to adequately describe their present status. Van Perlo includes numbers of species that haven’t been seen for years, with only a simple “?” beside their island home. This is not very helpful in the least and a serious shortcoming of this guide - its insufficient text. The status of a great many honeycreepers has changed noticeably since the mid-1980s, sadly for the worse, and these updates would be most useful in any contemporary text.

On the upside, van Perlo does include, with equal plated coverage, all of the vagrants for the region, which is commendable. If one wanted to know, for instance, where Falcated Teal (Midway), Common Nighthawk (French Frigate Shoals), and Eyebrowed Thrush (Midway) have shown up within Hawaii, that information is available to the reader, another great feature. Again, van Perlo goes out of his way to then map vagrant occurrences with different colors to denote the seasonality for such records, another useful tidbit. Furthermore, the guide can serve as a predictor for possible future vagrants, something a purely Hawaii guide would lack. By illustrating to the reader that American Golden-Plover has shown up in New Zealand, for example, it goes without saying that this would be a species to have on one’s radar elsewhere in Oceania. For all of this, I must applaud his efforts.

In conclusion, if I were to buy a single guide for Hawaii, it would still be Pratt et al.’s guide from 1987. The text from that outdated guide more than compensates for the fact that it is nearly 25 years old, although now desperately in need of reprint. Van Perlo’s guide, should it find a place on your bookshelf, would serve nicely as a supplementary guide to the region, presenting the full breadth of species in a single sweep. A primary source, however, it is not.

Cameron Rutt
Laysan, Hawaii
September 2011

Book Review: “Birds of Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Central and West Pacific,” by Ber van Perlo, Princeton University Press (2011). 256 pages. 95 color plates. 787 species.

Disclaimer: Princeton University kindly provided a copy of this guide for the review.