Lynx fieldguide poll (1 Viewer)

James Eaton said:

Why would it have to be done in two parts? There's only about 800 species on the Russian list, and with them being largely Eurasian in origin, diversity is fairly low, and far less subspecies and cryptic diversity to deal with than compared to the tropics + historically well-covered so novel research is limited compared to other areas of the world.
I spent some time in Sakha last year, and though roads are sparse, there are certainly plenty of roads that can get you into most general areas of the remoter central and north-eastern areas of the country. We also found a handful of species breeding away from the mapped areas in HBW, so an up-to-date guide would also be useful for gaining a greater knowledge for the real distribution for a lot of species.

I think a field guide for Russia would be absolutely superb and much-needed. It would undoubtedly create more interest and hopefully bring an increase in foreign birders to the country. I found it to have some of the most enjoyable general birding I've had anywhere in Asia during my few weeks there.

James

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Most people who set foot in Russia, do so in the East, very few visit the West so I see no point in combining the two. How far East have you got to go to find a species that's not in the Collins guide?

temmie said:

I can see the point in a Russian guide if only for having a guide in that part of the world but only if it has good maps!
A Russian guide could be interesting if it includes all former USSR republics, but I don't know if that would involve too much politics...

Regarding Cuba, that one will be soon covered by a Lynx guide (with a Blue-headed Quail-dove on the cover) so no need to vote for that one... Moreover, there already is another good Cuba guide published by Lynx but under the Helm name: https://www.lynxeds.com/product/field-guide-birds-cuba

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Just today I found ad. for this from my e-mail: https://www.lynxeds.com/product/birds-west-indies-2 Obviously you mean this Temmie. :t:

Good Guide from Russia would be nice. I would buy it even if I wasn't traveling there. However, Finland is a potential country for vagrants coming from eastern neighbor...

James Eaton said:

Why would it have to be done in two parts? There's only about 800 species on the Russian list, and with them being largely Eurasian in origin, diversity is fairly low, and far less subspecies and cryptic diversity to deal with than compared to the tropics + historically well-covered so novel research is limited compared to other areas of the world.
I spent some time in Sakha last year, and though roads are sparse, there are certainly plenty of roads that can get you into most general areas of the remoter central and north-eastern areas of the country. We also found a handful of species breeding away from the mapped areas in HBW, so an up-to-date guide would also be useful for gaining a greater knowledge for the real distribution for a lot of species.

I think a field guide for Russia would be absolutely superb and much-needed. It would undoubtedly create more interest and hopefully bring an increase in foreign birders to the country. I found it to have some of the most enjoyable general birding I've had anywhere in Asia during my few weeks there.

James

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James, out of interest, did you see many species in Sakha that wouldn't also feature in a comprehensive field guide to China?

andyadcock said:

Regarding language, don't forget that all the ex Soviet countries have their own languages, were pretty much forced to learn and speak Russian and may not take kindly to having it imposed on them again, especially in parts of the Baltic.

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Publishing a bird book in Russian is not really the same as imposing a language in a country...

People in many of the former Soviet republics are used to not having a lot of literature available in local languages and happily take Russian language books.

Of course such a book shouldn't be called "Birds of the Former Soviet Union" or "Birds of the Russian Sphere of Interests" but something with less political connotations...

dalat said:

Publishing a bird book in Russian is not really the same as imposing a language in a country...

People in many of the former Soviet republics are used to not having a lot of literature available in local languages and happily take Russian language books.

Of course such a book shouldn't be called "Birds of the Former Soviet Union" or "Birds of the Russian Sphere of Interests" but something with less political connotations...

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"Birds of the Commonwealth of Independent States"?

(old Soviet Union, minus the Baltic states now in the EU, Ukraine, and one or two of the Caucasus republics)

Nutcracker said:

"Birds of the Commonwealth of Independent States"?

(old Soviet Union, minus the Baltic states now in the EU, Ukraine, and one or two of the Caucasus republics)

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Far better simply something along the lines of 'Birds of Russia and Neighbouring States', then define the area in the foreward.

The CIS is political union, subject to change according to wind, and in my (albeit limited) experience doesn't give any sense of belonging to any persons who live within the block - locals don't identify themselves as citizens of the CIS, or really even think of the CIS in the general course of things. 'Birds of the CIS' would be a little weird I think.

And also, if you are doing an inclusive guide to all of Russia, then you can not leave out the Baltic States, so would need to incorporate non-CIS anyhow.

Warixenjalka said:

Just today I found ad. for this from my e-mail: https://www.lynxeds.com/product/birds-west-indies-2 Obviously you mean this Temmie. :t:

Good Guide from Russia would be nice. I would buy it even if I wasn't traveling there. However, Finland is a potential country for vagrants coming from eastern neighbor...

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Wasn't aware of this,

strange that it's not on their 'coming soon' list along with Japan, also scheduled for June this year.

I forecast that they'd do 2-3 new titles per year with the artwork already in place so that's two already scheduled for this year.

Thanks.

Jos Stratford said:

'Birds of Russia and Neighbouring States', then define the area in the foreward.

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:t:

As Lynx-people seem to read here, sure we'll get that soon. Shame I don't read enough Russian, so I'll have to go with the English version.

Whatever they do, I hope the next field guide will group maps outside bird pictures. Possibly lower left side of the spreaded page, with the text overflowing below bird illustrations to the lower right-hand side.

I find maps inside bird plates (e.g. in Birds of Indonesia) visually ugly, and actually not easy to use, because map resolution is often too small. Much better is the idea of higher-resolution maps showing only part of the region, like e.g. Collins bird guide, or red arrows or large red dots or triangles pointing these very narrow bird ranges.

I also found that the same pictures lifted from HBW and printed in slightly lower quality and much smaller size are not only not very attractive, but actually don't show identification marks that well.

I've yet to use it in the field, but after reading through it a lot, actually I don't find the placement that bad. Firstly, in the new Thailand and Vietnam editions, the maps are less obtrousive than in the Indonesia guide. They did without the box around the maps and these wierd tick boxes and just show the country outline. The plates are not too crammed and maps don't distract from enjoying the plates I find.

I also can imagine that in use in the field (again I've not yet done that) the placement is more intuitive than the traditional one: when looking for an unknown bird, the first thing I usuallly do is go through the plates to find birds that match the field marks and check the maps to see if its actually a possibility in the location. Only once fitting birds are found, I go to the text.

So for the quick scan, not such bad idea to place the plates and maps together. But I agree that the plates would be more aesthetic without maps.

Plates in the the Vietnam guide are ok to me. But of course depends to what you compare it to. Many are an improvement on Robson's plates.