Any bird guide for Mexico? (1 Viewer)

[Mysticete]

Again, the region is highlighted on the map in the introduction, and Mexico or at least parts of it are often included in people's definition of "North America", which I'm guessing is because the cultural and geographical borders are fuzzy and the Nearctic extends south of the border. So yes, it does appear of pretend to, especially since I haven't found any explanation within the book.

It only covers Northern Mexico in so much as as that region is covered is included in the range map. It's reaching to say that there is any intention of covering it by Sibley. Or Nat Geo. Or Peterson.

Rather, all of the major guides have used the traditional definition of the ABA territory, which excludes Mexico, and until recently excluded Hawaii. That has always been the geographic focus of US and Canada based birders for listing purposes.

 

[James Lowther]

It only covers Northern Mexico in so much as as that region is covered is included in the range map. It's reaching to say that there is any intention of covering it by Sibley. Or Nat Geo. Or Peterson.

Rather, all of the major guides have used the traditional definition of the ABA territory, which excludes Mexico, and until recently excluded Hawaii. That has always been the geographic focus of US and Canada based birders for listing purposes.

That’s true up to a point, there is no intention to cover northern Mexico, and most North American birders wouldn’t expect it to cover Mexico either.

However, each book explicitly shows a map labelled “Western/Eastern region of North America covered in this guide” that highlights regions of northern Mexico. Neither book explains that coverage stops at the Mexican border.

So, not only do the authors/publishers fail to properly explain the geographical scope of the guide, but, inasmuch as they do explain it they give the incorrect impression that Mexico is included.

Relating the coverage to the ABA region and saying “people ought to know” isn’t really enough. Imagine if you bought a field guide to Europe on the assumption that Spain was included, on the basis that a) Spain is part of Europe, b) the map showing the coverage included Spain and c) there was no mention in the text of Spain being excluded. Then you turn up in Spain only to find it’s not included because of some arcane piece of European birding lore. You’d be rightly irritated. Same thing here....

Cheers
james

 

[njlarsen]

A different approach to this: in previous threads there has been a lot of discussion about where the best "border" would be between North American and Central American bird areas. One argument raised was that the Rio Grande del Norte and a continuation of it that goes north of SE Arizona would be one valid border. Another of course would be the Isthmus of Tehuantepec but those favoring the more northerly border argue that some tropical genera do reach west of the isthmus.

All of this obviously does not change that the communication by the Sibley guides regarding their range could be clearer.
Niels

 

[Jim M.]

The Sibley guides state that they only cover birds north of Mexico. This statement is at the beginning of the introduction to the volumes.

Below are two examples:

"This book covers the identification of 923 species (plus many regional forms) found in the continent of North America north of Mexico….)" The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2d ed. p. ix.

"This book covers the identification of 650 species of birds (plus certain regional forms) found in Eastern North America.… The American Birding Association's definition of the entire North American region includes the land north of Mexico…. This guide…conforms to these boundaries…." The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (2003), p. 8.

 

[pbjosh]

I am not really bothered and I guess never was misled as to the coverage of these “North American” guides but I still find it somewhere in the realm of facetious / ethnocentric / misleading to call the books guides to the birds of North America when Mexico is not included. This Lexi graphic issue is rampant in the US and Canada and seems quite insensitive and incorrect.

 

[Butty]

I never understood why this Sibley-coverage issue came up at all. Unless you're ethnically/politically precious about the definition of 'North America', there simply is no issue here. The region covered is defined in each of the three books, and explicitly does not include Mexico - and the big book doesn't even include 'North America' in its title anyway. Statements or implications given in this thread that the region is not defined, or is defined but not followed, are wrong.

map labelled “Western/Eastern region of North America covered in this guide” that highlights regions of northern Mexico

It does do that - and goodness knows why. Highlighting any part of Mexico is (from the text) clearly not the purpose of that map, which is plainly there to show the north-south coverage boundary - and there is no equivalent map at all in the big book. It's obviously a design error. So this is it - the only point that actually needs to be addressed: that Mr Sibley should be asked to un-highlight the bit of Mexico that falls within the region-defining map in the West/East editions.

Neither book explains that coverage stops at the Mexican border.
So, not only do the authors/publishers fail to properly explain the geographical scope of the guide, but, inasmuch as they do explain it they give the incorrect impression that Mexico is included.

This is wrong. The text explains and defines it explicitly.

 

[Jim M.]

I am not really bothered and I guess never was misled as to the coverage of these “North American” guides but I still find it somewhere in the realm of facetious / ethnocentric / misleading to call the books guides to the birds of North America when Mexico is not included. This Lexi graphic issue is rampant in the US and Canada and seems quite insensitive and incorrect.

I believe the first guide to be called "Birds of North America" dates from 1966--it was the first guide that put range maps, bird picture, and text all on the same page, which has become the preferred modern format copied by the Collins guide among others. Prior to that time, the dominant field guides in this country were the Peterson series which had two guides--one for east and one for west. So the title was meant to indicate that it was different in covering both east and west---you didn't need two separate guides. "Birds of the United States and Canada" would also have been an inaccurate title because the guide did not cover Hawaii, which had only recently become a state (1959). "Birds of the United States and Canada" is also a clunkier title. So I expect those are the reasons "Birds of North America" was chosen--it conveyed what was new about the book and was aesthetically pleasing, even though it is not entirely accurate (but neither are the reasonable alternative titles).

 

[Mysticete]

I am not really bothered and I guess never was misled as to the coverage of these “North American” guides but I still find it somewhere in the realm of facetious / ethnocentric / misleading to call the books guides to the birds of North America when Mexico is not included. This Lexi graphic issue is rampant in the US and Canada and seems quite insensitive and incorrect.

While it certainly doesn't apply to all, I think the root issue is that most birders at the time when the field guide industry really got going, considered Mexico an exotic location and not a place they would go off and bird by there lonesome, in part because of US citizens views towards the country and in part because the inhabitants largely speak another language (Yes, people in Quebec speak french, but that region doesn't have any birds that are not found in the English-speaking regions). Add in Mexico has a huge bird list and its inclusion would expand the size of the book and produce practical considerations, and distributions and taxonomy of Mexican birds seemed much less certain back in the day, and there are your reasons.

Should the guides be renamed "Field Guide to United States and Canada", sure, although that would mean adding in Hawaii of course.

 

[Jim M.]

While it certainly doesn't apply to all, I think the root issue is that most birders at the time when the field guide industry really got going, considered Mexico an exotic location and not a place they would go off and bird by there lonesome, in part because of US citizens views towards the country and in part because the inhabitants largely speak another language (Yes, people in Quebec speak french, but that region doesn't have any birds that are not found in the English-speaking regions). Add in Mexico has a huge bird list and its inclusion would expand the size of the book and produce practical considerations, and distributions and taxonomy of Mexican birds seemed much less certain back in the day, and there are your reasons.

I think that is a different issue from the issue raised in this thread which has focused on how the guides are titled. The issue you are addressing is why field guides covering birds of the continental U.S. and Canada do not also cover Mexico. I think for various reasons, some of which you allude to, it simply makes a lot more practical sense to cover Mexico in a separate guide--a thorough guide truly covering all of north america would be too heavy and unwieldy to be a field guide. Plus why would a birder in the U.S. want to carry around a guide covering hundreds of species he wouldn't see unless he traveled far to the south? The Peterson guide to Mexican birds came out in 1973, and other guides preceded it; english language bird finding guides to Mexico date back at least to 1955. So Mexico was not ignored by U.S. birders; it was just treated in separate volumes. (I will also note that Mexicans themselves use "norteamericano" to refer to people or things from north of the border.)

 

[James Lowther]

The Sibley guides state that they only cover birds north of Mexico. This statement is at the beginning of the introduction to the volumes.

Below are two examples:

"This book covers the identification of 923 species (plus many regional forms) found in the continent of North America north of Mexico….)" The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2d ed. p. ix.

"This book covers the identification of 650 species of birds (plus certain regional forms) found in Eastern North America.… The American Birding Association's definition of the entire North American region includes the land north of Mexico…. This guide…conforms to these boundaries…." The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (2003), p. 8.

Hi Jim,
verbatim quote from The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, 2d ed, p ix below.

"This book covers the identification of nearly 700 bird species... found in eastern North America.... Offshore waters are included to a distance of 200 miles.... These boundaries conform to the American Birding Association's definition of the ABA area."

no specific mention of "north of Mexico".

I am not imagining this!

You could argue that mention of the ABA area implies Mexico is not in scope however that assumes the reader is familiar with the ABA area, and is counteracted by a map on the facing page that very much implies Mexico is in scope.

So - again there is a clear failure of the publisher/authors to explain the geographical scope properly in the most recent editions. The fact they managed to do so in earlier editions just makes this failure more mystifying.

cheers,
James

 

[Jim M.]

So - again there is a clear failure of the publisher/authors to explain the geographical scope properly in the most recent editions. The fact they managed to do so in earlier editions just makes this failure more mystifying.

cheers,
James

Fair enough James. I don't have the second edition of the regional guides. But I quoted from the latest edition of the main guide. So assuming your quotes are accurate, the failure of which you complain only applies to the latest edition of the regional guides. It also seems to me minor; the reader would only need to google "ABA area" to understand what was being said.

 

[James Lowther]

ok Jim,
we're going to have to agree to disagree. I never imagined that the Sibley guides might cover Mexico, but then i am familiar with the peccadilloes of the American birding community. I do see where Sanga is coming from though. In the most recent versions of the well known East and West guides (but not the earlier versions or the most recent version of the comprehensive guide) the only indication that Mexico is excluded is a fairly oblique reference to the ABA region that in context appears to refer to the maritime limits of the geographical scope rather than anything land-based. This appears opposite a map clearly suggesting Mexico is in scope.
To me, that's a pretty poor show and understandable, rather than an excuse for scorn, that some potential purchasers of the book might not be clear on the specific meaning of North America in the title.....

cheers,
James

 

[TupeloN8]

A couple notes with regard to both of the issues raised in this group.

1) In my opinion the best guide to Mexico currently is the Howell and Webb guide, but it's dated both in terms of format and taxonomy. I know that Princeton University Press has a new photo guide in the works by Michael Retter that promises to be a significant update. I think it will be out in 2023.

2) The whole what is and isn't North America in a field guide is an issue that is complicated by history. The exclusion of Mexico and the rest of Central America predates the ABA, but in modern times the ABA Area has been a useful term. Though, as noted above, it requires knowing what the ABA Area is, which isn't intuitive. I can say that future in the National Geographic series, at least, will use the proper terms "US and Canada" to refer to the covered area. I suspect that this move, plus the forthcoming updated guide to Birds of Mexico, will clarify things. Funnily enough the use of a "North America" that excludes Mexico goes all the way back to the 1700s, before Mexico and Canada were even countries!

 

[pbjosh]

1) In my opinion the best guide to Mexico currently is the Howell and Webb guide, but it's dated both in terms of format and taxonomy. I know that Princeton University Press has a new photo guide in the works by Michael Retter that promises to be a significant update. I think it will be out in 2023.

Would be great if Michael's guide were out soon - I had the impression it was further out but that was merely an impression and is already a year or three old.

There is also meant to be a new Mexico guide from Steve Howell, illustrated by Dale Dyer. I've not heard anything about timing, but it is by now widely out there that the book is in preparation.

 

[TupeloN8]

There is also meant to be a new Mexico guide from Steve Howell, illustrated by Dale Dyer. I've not heard anything about timing, but it is by now widely out there that the book is in preparation.

That's exciting to hear. I love Dyer's illustrations and you can't beat Howell for text.

It's amazing that Mexico is so lacking in field guides considering how birdy it is.

 

[pbjosh]

It's amazing that Mexico is so lacking in field guides considering how birdy it is.

Cough BRAZIL Cough

 

[anssikullberg]

Given how many excellent, up-to-date and beautiful field guides for countries like Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia etc. there are, it's very surprising that nobody has put together a modern field guide for Mexico. Would think that book would have a huge demand in the field guide market.

I found myself having to do a lot of online research on sites and species because the books discussed were so inadequate and in some cases with obsolete information.

 

[Swissboy]

Cough BRAZIL Cough

Yes, Brazil is only partially superbly supplied. The two WCS books for the Southeast and Pantanal are fine. And the van Perlo book for Brazil at least provides a full-country coverage that is based on standard page-spread comfort. For the Mexico version of the van Perlo book pbjosh has already offered an appropriate ranking (post #3). Thus, Mexico definitely is very much worse off with respect to FGs as far as I'm concerned.

The country - or rather the visiting birder - suffers from the fact that the Howell & Webb tome lies like an insurmountable rock in the way of any ventures into a modern FG.

 

[DMW]

Given how many excellent, up-to-date and beautiful field guides for countries like Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia etc. there are, it's very surprising that nobody has put together a modern field guide for Mexico. Would think that book would have a huge demand in the field guide market.

I found myself having to do a lot of online research on sites and species because the books discussed were so inadequate and in some cases with obsolete information.

In case you missed the comment early in the thread, the Merlin app is really pretty decent for Mexico. It has good text, recordings, and range maps, plus a decent selection of photos for most species. Considering it's free and you can use it on your phone, it's a great resource.

 

[Mysticete]

Brazil seems

Yes, Brazil is only partially superbly supplied. The two WCS books for the Southeast and Pantanal are fine. And the van Perlo book for Brazil at least provides a full-country coverage that is based on standard page-spread comfort. For the Mexico version of the van Perlo book pbjosh has already offered an appropriate ranking (post #3). Thus, Mexico definitely is very much worse off with respect to FGs as far as I'm concerned.

The country - or rather the visiting birder - suffers from the fact that the Howell & Webb tome lies like an insurmountable rock in the way of any ventures into a modern FG.

I've recently bought both of the recent WCS books. They really are great guides, and it's kind of sad they are not continuing the series. Perhaps Lynx could unofficially do so, by filling in the missing regions? I am at least glad that the the two books both target different regions that are high on many birders "must visit" list.