[Padjo]

Hello, my wife and I are traveling around in china this July (mainly Yunnan and Sichuan). We'll have an iPad with us. Is there any illustrated guide to Chinese birds that works on this device? We are not experienced birders but would like to have a little better idea of the birds that cross our path.

Thanks

padjo

[Mal92]

Hi Padjo
The only field-guide I can find which covers an area close by is Mark Brazils' Birds of East-Asia, available on Kindle http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birds-East-F...A3TVV12T0I6NSM

[china guy]

Mark Brazil's work covers a lot of birds you'll find in Sichuan and Yunnan - but lacks a very vital piece of info - details on species distribution outside the books area of East China. To get this info you'll need the Oxford University Press's, A Field guide to the Birds of China by John MacKinnon. This book, although heavily criticized and now really showing its age, is still the one and only ID guide that fills in for Sichuan and Yunnan - and has distribution maps that will at least give you an idea of what birds you'll be finding on your route.
Not sure if there's a version of this book that works on Ipad - and unfortunately the paper version is built like brick and weighs about as much as one - but this is the book you need.
An online resource that goes nicely with the MacKinnon book, is OBC images - where you'll be able to find images of all the Chinese birds that you can compare with some of the less than perfect illustration found in the guidebook.
Otherwise if you have problems ID'ing birds - stick them up here or in the bird ID forum.
All the best with your trip
Sid

[darth bangkok]

I just received my copy of the MacKinnon book. Besides the age, what precisely are the negatives about it?

I will be in China for 6 weeks in July / August this year. For three weeks, I will be in Nanjing taking a course. I already have the Brazil book, so I will take that with me for this portion. After the course is finished, I will send home some of my things, the book too maybe, and then go off for another 3 weeks to see some sights (hopefully all the way to Xinjiang!) So I don't know what book to use for that. I won't be exclusively birding either. Maybe I can tear out the plates from the MacKinnon book and leave the rest behind

[Frogfish]

If you Google 'Bird Apps for iPad' or something along those lines, then you'll find some iPad apps. The best ones seem to be more targeted at the USA market but iBird does a UK/European version and as many of the birds in Asia are very similar to their European brethren then it's a cheap (about $7 I think) addition that may help. I have MacKinnon's in hard copy but not in pdf yet, though I do have Mark Brazil's 'Birds of East Asia' in pdf form on the iPad, which is of course much more China-relevant than iBird.

[Cellobabs]

I too plan to travel in China with an iPad. I couldn't find a kindle or PDF of mark Brazil's book. Any suggestions?

[thirudevaram]

Thanks to some Chinese websites, PDF version of Brazil's "Birds of east asia" and Mackinnon's "Birds of China" are available for free. It works very well with IPAD.

[chris butterworth]

Just a thought ( and I'm not recommending anyone do it. I don't know how the law is ) but if your local library does ebooks .............. Just thinking out loud.


Chris