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Aves De Macaronesia (1 Viewer)

Wonder how it compares with Clarke 2006 (Birds of the Atlantic Islands)? [Helm obviously decided that 'Macaronesia' was too big a word. ;)] 342pp vs 368pp, 150 plates vs 69 plates.

I note that maps are provided (Clarke presents island-by-island status in tabular form). It will be interesting to see whether these depict intra-island distributions, or just an indication of the islands on which a species occurs.

Clarke's book always struck me as unusual for a field guide, and the same will clearly apply to this new title (describing 573 taxa) - the relatively few regular species (posing few ID problems anyway) are completely outnumbered by vagrants (better covered by Svensson et al?), giving a rather unbalanced impression of the regional avifauna. Perhaps better treated as illustrated reference works than 'field' guides...
 
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Having had a peek at a draft copy in December, the maps and text are based on the most current field research, with maps in particular showing realistic distributions (e.g. Priolo), rather than a blanket 'blob' to indicate occurrence on an island.

The artists include Lewington and should be of superb quality - looking forward to getting my hands on a copy.

I think you're right about the prevalence of migrants/vagrants/accidentals - a purely resident species book would be a fairly short tome - although part of the charm of island birding is the mix of weird endemics and other species.
 
When is the English version due out?

I have to say that I thought Tony Clarke's guide was very good but when I go back to the Canaries in the autumn I wouldn't mind having both.

Stephen
 
My copy of this book has now arrived. I haven't gone through it in great detail but here are some initial thoughts:

- it is essentially a pure field guide whereas Clarke et al does a lot of the 'where to watch birds in ...' content at the front

- it appears to have no fewer than 24 illustrators. I am not clear whether this is because a lot of it has come from other published sources or not. It means that the style of the images varies a lot more than most recent field guides. Being positive if you aren't a fan of a particular illustrator it does mean that only a small number of the plates will disappoint

- it does seem to have something of a fetish for showing the whole bird and this looks rather strange in some cases. I don't expect many scoters in Macaronesia will be sat on a beach or reservoir edge, and showing diver and grebe feet without water is a bit odd

- as you would expect there is good coverage of endemic subspecies

If anybody wants me to address any specific queries before deciding whether to purchase give me a shout.

Stephen
 
I see now that the illustrations are lifted from the HBW series,with some additional illustrations.

Auks are another example of a group where the illustration bear no relation to the likely views (or unlikely views given they are all vagrants in the area covered by the book).

Stephen
 
Stephen Dunstan said:
.....- as you would expect there is good coverage of endemic subspecies

If anybody wants me to address any specific queries before deciding whether to purchase give me a shout.

Stephen
Click to expand...

Hi Stephen,
Thanks a lot for this brief review. I don't particularly care for getting the same illustrations again, unless they are brilliant. ;) So my question is about those illustrations that are not from HBW. Do they show island subspecies that were not illustrated in HBW? And how is the quality of these additional illustrations compared to the HBW copies?

Also, would you recommend Clarke et al more than this new book if one only wants to get one?
 
Robert,

I haven't had the Lynx book long but on first impressions I would get the Clarke et al one if I only bought one.

In terms of the island subspecies I am at a disadvantage not owning HBW as I don't know which ones are not illustrated in there. Partly because of the 24 author issue the answer is that it varies:-

Blue Tits - four of the six illustrations which I assume are the additional ones are in a completely different style than then other two and the plate therefore looks 'wrong'

Chiff Chaffs - in my opinion these are excellent

Chaffinches - as with Blue TIt some of these are presumably new artwork and look different to the other illustrations on the plate

Hope this helps.

Stephen
 
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