>Scott or anyone else familar with the Puerto Vallarta-San Blas(ted) area,
>I'm off to this area in a week and am wondering if other spots like
>Yalapa exist. If you are privy to such information I'm all ears, well
>eyes in this case. Also, is Howell and Webb a must, or can I get by with
>my Peterson's Guide To Mexico? Howell and webb seems to weigh in at 2X
>my luggage. Thanks
>Barry Levine
>

As I begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel on my blackbird book
project, I am looking at other projects to get hooked in on. One of these is
a field guide project, and I would like some input on this. The Mexico guide
by Howell and Webb is great, has all the information you need to identify a
bird and more but it weighs a ton. Peterson on the other hand is good enough
to identify most species, but its small and has little additional
information other than how to identify the birds. However, some of its
taxonomy is outdated. In my opinion, Howell and Webb is not really a field
guide but a hybrid between a manual and a field guide. It certainly is good
and I have a copy on my shelf, but does it function well as a field guide?
How do tweeters feel about these huge Latin American field guides? If there
were handier, abridged versions to these books (Colombia, Mexico, Birds of
South America....) would you rather carry this, than the huge version, even
though the information is not as complete? Several of these books have
sections devoted to nesting, do you find this helpful in a 'field guide'?
How important is it to have the maps, text and illustration facing each
other versus a bunch of plates stuck in the center of the book?

Any imput or discussion is welcome.

Al

Alvaro Jaramillo "You are better off not knowing
Half Moon Bay, CA how sausages and laws are made"
alvaro at quake.net Otto von Bismarck,
but I saw it in a fortune cookie!

http://www.quake.net/~alvaro/index.html