Product Description

From the snowcapped Himalayas and the Indus valley, to the Ganges delta and the Sri Lankan forests, the Indian subcontinent is home to 13% of the world's species of birds and thousands of birders and ecotourists flock to the area every year. This field guide will be indispensable to those who wish to find and identify the many species of avifauna of the Indian subcontinent and environs.

Featuring more than 150 color plates by eminent bird illustrators from Europe and India, it depicts all the known species in the region, ranging from the Himalayan Snowcock in the north to the Sri Lanka Spurfowl in the south. The plates include all relevant identifiable subspecies, as well as ages and sexes. It contains hundreds of range maps and the succinct text on the facing pages covers identification, voice, and distribution. Specially designed for use in the field, it is a compact version of the landmark A Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, hailed on its publication as a "stunning book" that "advanced the cause of Indian birding by 20-30 years." With its modest price, small trim size, and sturdy, weather-resistant binding, this field guide is the one volume that every adventurous traveler to the Indian subcontinent must have.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #363649 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Richard Grimmett was an artist for A Guide to the Birds of Nepal and founding chairman of the Oriental Bird Club. He coauthored BirdLife's Important Bird Areas of Europe. Carol Inskipp is the coauthor (with Tim Inskipp) of A Guide to the Birds of Nepal and An Introduction to Birdwatching in Bhutan and author of A Birdwatcher's Guide to Nepal. In addition to cowriting two books with Carol Inskipp, Tim Inskipp is the coauthor of An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region.

Customer Reviews

At long last...
Finally, a complete, comphrensive FIELD guide to the birds of India! Gone are the days of hauling 2 or 3 hardcover bird books to the subcontinent just to be able to identify relatively common species. The drawings in this book are excellent, the descriptions very detailed, and the range maps very helpful. My two criticisms are that birders familiar with the common names in Salim Ali's "The Book of Indian Birds" will be confused with the revised nomenclature in this guide (based on the Inskipp's Indian Checklist); some changes are relatively minor, while others are so dramatically different (and frankly puzzling) that cross-referencing is a chore. The second involves the seperation of many of the range maps from the plates and descriptions, sometimes by many pages. This was due to the large number of species featured on some plates- there just wasn't enough room for the maps also. A better strategy might have been to put them all in the back of the book. But the benefits of this book far outweigh the shortcomings- my next trip to India promises to be more rewarding and productive bird-wise (as well as easier on my back)due to this excellent and overdue field guide.

The birder's companion to India
Going to India? BUY THIS BOOK. Truly a definitive guide to the birds of India, absolutely user-friendly in the field. Accurate slates and distribution diagrams will help you determine, very briskly, the bird you are looking at. This is important in India because there are tons of birds. Morphological and behavioural characteristics are also defined in this intense field guide. Importantly, this is easy to access, it doesn't make you bounce back and forth 3 times from the slate. Pointers on the slate also help you to quickly make distinctions between similar birds. This field guide makes birding fun and an ease. Colourful slates, smart layout, if only all field guides could be this good.

Only book we needed
We bought a second reference because it's hard to know which plates will help amateurs like us identify the species in a place we've not previously visited. However, with the plates, the maps, and the generally brief, but accurate descriptions, this was the only book we needed to quickly identify the over 100 species we spotted on our trip. The soft cover made it easier to stuff into one of our binocular bags.