Birding Honduras - Field Guides for Central America

BIRD GUIDES FOR CENTRAL AMERICA

There are many excellent field guides for Central America, too many to take with you for certain. Some were written with a specific country in mind, a couple cover multiple countries, yet most countries do not have their own country-specific bird guide. To make matters worse, for countries like Honduras no single guide treats all the birds, and you may have to lug around three guides and over 2,000 pages to cover the whole country - heavy! A question we frequently hear is "What field guide should I take on my tour to Guatemala [or wherever]?" You might even think of it this way: "What field guide should I take to the top of the mountain, and which stays at home?" Here we answer some of those questions for you. NOTE TO LAWYERS: This page is not intended as an endorsement of any title or author; we are simply trying to provide a service. Titles are arranged geographically north to south.

FULL FIELD GUIDES

Mexican Birds. 1973. by Roger Tory Peterson and Edward L. Chalif. This is a classic and was the only field guide that was at all useful for Central America before the recent addition of Central America country guides that we began to see in 1989 with “Costa Rica” and “Panama”. The species accounts and range descriptions brief and lacking detail, but anyone with a passion for Mexican birds or Peterson's works should own a copy. Available in Spanish.

A Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. 1995. by Steve N. G. Howell and Sophie Webb. The geographic coverage of this guide is all of Mexico, El Salvador, Belize, and Guatemala, and the western 3/4 of Honduras. For any of these countries it is the essential guide. It has the only distribution maps of any Central America guide, and the text is unrivaled. The plates are mostly very good, with 12 plates for diurnal raptors alone. Species restricted to Caribbean coastal and eastern Honduras are included in a separate appendix.

Birds of Belize. 2003. By H. Lee Jones, illustrated by Dana Gardner. This is one of the few Central America guides that illustrates northern migrants to any extent. This is a fine tool for anyone visiting Belize, and deserves to be on the bookshelves of Neotropical bird aficionados.

A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica. 1989. by F. Gary Stiles and Alexander F. Skutch; illustrated by Dana Gardner. This is the definitive source for Costa Rica. However, because the book was written for Costa Rica, it lacks range maps. Instead, bird distributions are explained in detail for Costa Rica, and summarized for the entire range of each species. Gardner's plates are colorful and clear. Skutch was the grandfather of Central American ornithology, and passed away in 2004 just weeks shy of his 100th birthday. His word is gold, and this guide can be considered authoritative for natural history. Available in Spanish.

A Guide to the Birds of Panama, with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. 2nd edition. 1989. by Robert S. Ridgely and John A. Gwynne. This all-time classic is a must-have for any visit to Panama, Nicaragua, and eastern Honduras. For that matter, anyone with an interest in the birds of Central America should own a copy. Ridgely is the birders's birder, and Gwynne one of the finest bird illustrators alive (though not all plates in the work are his). This tome is, of course, focused on Panama, so there are no range maps and distributional information for other countries is wanting. Available in Spanish.

Birds of North America. Choose your favorite. None of the above works fully illustrates the migrant species that nest in North America. Except during the months of June and July you will see plenty of these, so come prepared. Remember, North American migrants are a major part of the avifauna of all Central American countries.

ANNOTATED CHECKLISTS

Annotated checklists are not full field guides, but they are much more than mere lists. A good annotated checklist provides all the relevant information for the birds of the area in question: distribution, abundance, habitats, population status, elevational ranges, even local names. If you are visiting Belize, El Salvador, or Honduras, the following three works will be indispensable.

Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Belize. 2001. by H. Lee Jones and A. C. Vallely. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, Spain.

Lista de Aves de El Salvador. 2001. by Oliver Komar and Juan Pablo Domínguez. SalvaNatura, San Salvador, El Salvador. Available only in Spanish.

Birding Honduras: A Checklist and Guide. 2002. by Mark Bonta and David L. Anderson. EcoArte, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Your local bookseller should be able to track down most of these works. If that fails, try Buteo Books at http://www.buteobooks.com.