Thailand field guide recommendations? (1 Viewer)

In planning a trip to Thailand of course the big question is, what field guide should I get for birds? It seems like I've got 3 (or 5?) choices.

Birds of Thailand, Princeton University Press (October 1, 2002)
Birds of Thailand, New Holland Publishers Ltd; 2nd Revised edition edition (1 Jan 2005)
Birds of Southeast Asia, Princeton University Press (August 1, 2005)
Birds of South-East Asia, New Holland Publishers Ltd; Concise Ed. edition (1 Sep 2005)
A Guide to the Birds of Thailand (1991)

Things I've found so far seem to suggest that the descriptions might be better in the older book, that the pictures are best in the Birds of Thailand, and that the Birds of SE Asia is the smallest of the bunch.

The most confusing part to me is... Are the New Holland and Princeton books actually different books? The publish dates are a little different, the cover is different, but the page counts and author is the same. Is the New Holland birds of Thailand an updated version of the Princeton University book?

I'm leaning towards getting Birds of Thailand, but am unclear about what the differences between the editions are. Does anyone have any suggestions, clarifications or compelling reasons to get one of the other ones?

Hopefully others with more books will answer, but I've loved my (Robson) Birds of Thailand (actually 2004 Asia books reprint of the New Holland pub, I believe). Some plates are quite good (others not as strong), the layout is nice (maps and descriptions across from plates). The bird pictures are numbered rather than named, which is not so convenient, and I think to make it thin, some of the ordering of birds might be a little unusual (not sure on this).

I've heard others say that one might as well get a book for all of SE Asia, but I ended up with this one (a bit by chance) and have liked it a lot.

I guess its helpful to know how much you care about the latest splits and what level of expertise you need from a book... (at my level, anything is helpful )

I shall be using Craig Robson's Bird's of Thailand the plates are excellent in the book.

Ok, so you both agree that the Robson book is good.

I'm not really sure how to measure level of expertise? When I need to use a guide I use Sibley.

So really I guess, does anyone know if there's a difference between the different published versions that are available online to me? The Princeton (2002) is on Amazon US, while the New Holland (2005) is on Amazon UK, so I might have a harder time getting that one.

Go for Robson, published by Princeton. It's the same book as the New Holland, but for the US market.

It seems the latter is out of print in the UK anyway, at the mo.

Another advantage of the Princeton edition is that it's paperback- and lighter in the field. I use a transparent plastic book cover to protect it.

I also supplement it with plates scanned from other field guides and monographs- only a few, as it's so good.