There’s also a new field guide that’s just been published. Guess what? I love it. The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide is fabulous, and it’s likely to be with me every minute that I’m birding in this delightful little Central American country. Am I tossing out my beloved Stiles & Skutch? Not at all! After all, don’t you own more than one guide to North American birds? You’re probably like me, owning Sibley, Peterson, National Geographic, Kaufmann’s Focus Guide, a Golden Guide, and perhaps a few others. Two approaches are often incredibly valuable.
The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide was written by Richard Garrigues, a highly respected Costa Rican resident birder. Garrigues’ book is not exactly like the earlier guide. It is smaller, with minimal text. For excellent, detailed natural history information, any curious birder will still thoroughly enjoy the earlier volume, now dated by about 20 years. But the newer book is not just an update of bird names, it features superior artwork by talented artist Robert Dean, larger paintings (just a few species per plate), text that faces the plates, range maps (a real rarity in field guides for neotropical countries), and succinct, excellent text that will help users identify birds. That’s the book’s stated purpose, and it accomplishes this goal extremely well.
Oh, I could quibble here and there – more drawing of immature birds might be nice, including offshore pelagic species would be helpful, perhaps sonograms of bird songs would be a nice addition – but these are really minor points. Costa Rica is not like North America, where we have a pile of field guides to compare and critique. This book fills a niche, and I will use it often. Since it arrived it’s been following me around the house. I leaf through a few pages before going to sleep. I’ll almost forget my breakfast cereal as I peruse a few more plates in the morning. I’m late heading out of the house to appointments as I think of some other species I want to check out. I haven’t had this much fun with a new book in a long, long time.
So what’s the big deal about Costa Rica? If you’re asking this, clearly you haven’t been there. Costa Rica is tropical. Costa Rica is diverse. The country is loaded with birds; this book, which skips pelagics, birds of far offshore Cocos Island, and extreme rarities, still includes over 820 species. There are many different habitats in a small geographical area, so a visiting birder can expect to see many, many species. It’s an exceptionally easy place to travel, with drinkable water from the tap in most areas, excellent standards of public health, a well-educated and environmentally sensitive populace, and an extremely gracious culture that places a high standard on hospitality. More than 25% of Costa Rica is protected as either a public or private park or reserve. From the east coast of the US, it’s a shorter flight to Costa Rica than it is to cities along the west coast of the US – it’s easy to get there.
So whenever you decide to head to Costa Rica, whether it’s your first visit or a return trip, be sure to take this new field guide along. You’ll enjoy identifying the many toucans, parrots, hummingbirds, tanagers, motmots, woodcreepers, antbirds, and other species that you’ll find there. You’ll still want the older Stiles & Skutch guide for its wealth of natural history information, but Garrigues (as I’ve already started to call this book) will be the perfect pocket companion in the field.
Garrigues, Richard and Robert Dean. The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2007. 416 pages, $29.95 paper, $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 978-0-8014-7373-9 (paper), 978-0-8014-4587-3 (cloth).
This situation has now changed dramatically with the publication of The Songs of Insects. Its two authors, Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger, are the perfect team for this project. Elliott is widely respected for his field recordings of birds and amphibians. Hershberger is co-author of a cult classic, “The Songs of Crickets and Katydids of the Mid-Atlantic States”, a self-published CD that is beloved to those lucky enough to learn of it. Together they have created an incredibly valuable resource for naturalists.
The Songs of Insects is both a book and a CD, both featuring 75 species of vocal insects of the eastern United States. The book is lavishly illustrated with superb photographs, which include close-up portraits and shots of these critters in their natural habitats. The text includes natural history information, identification tips, and range maps. Singing habits are described and large-scale sonograms included. Introductory text includes excellent summaries of basic entomological details about singing insects, their classification, methods of singing, and tips about how you can go about studying these creatures yourself, both in the wild and in captivity. That’s right, they suggest bringing crickets or katydids into your home to enjoy the songs!
Singing insects fall within five major groups, the cicadas and four families within the order Orthoptera: Gryllidae (field and ground crickets), Gryllotalpidae (mole crickets), Tettigoniidae (katydids), and Acrididae (grasshoppers). Each group is well represented in the book, and I’ll quickly admit that I was surprised by the diversity. There are many more species within each group than I had known. Now I’ve got to learn the different species and listen in the field for their songs.
While the book is stunningly beautiful and extremely informative, the CD is the real gem of this package. The recordings are very sharp and clear, the narration minimal yet direct and useful, and the variety of sounds captured is awe-inspiring. You could just listen over and over for fun, but the authors figured this out and came up with a better idea. Visit the web site for this project, www.songsofinsects.com, and you’ll see that you can order a CD titled, “Insect Concertos,” 60 minutes of insect song without narration. “Relax to the wonderful choruses of insects,” the site proclaims, “Release tension and fall asleep to gently pulsating choruses.” Okay, maybe these guys are a little over the top, but you’ve got to admit their whole package, including the “Singing Insect Notecards,” (no, the cards don’t make sounds), is polished and professional. Thanks Mr. Elliott and Mr. Hershberger, you have created a masterpiece and an important addition to the working libraries of many naturalists.
Elliott, Lang and Wil Hershberger. The Songs of Insects. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007. 228 pages, $19.95 paper. ISBN-13: 978-0-618-66397-2; ISBN 10: 0-618-66397-5.