A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Comstock Book) (ISBN 0801496004)

Birders' must-have:
This is an outstanding reference manual for the serious birder. Many of our naturalist guides in Costa Rica carried copies of it. Some of them had removed the plates and laminated them to make them more durable. The drawbacks are the size and weight, as well as the fact that the illustrations are not on the same page as the descriptions. If you want a small, light field guide, try "A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica" (Susan Fogen). It uses the same classification system as the Stiles book, but includes only the common bird varieties, and has a photo for each of them.

helpful but outdated:
The plates are very helpful but a number of bird names have changed and splits have occured since publication so many years ago. It's long past time for a new, updated edition.

nothing compares:
Yes, it's too big for the field. Yes, it was published in 1989, and no update is imminent (presumably). But no birder traveling to Costa Rica should do so without this work (and Amazon offers a great price). It's also true that Garrigues and Dean have now offered a much more portable guide that can (and should) be carried in the field, and for that I'm especially grateful. But when puzzles arise (as they invariably do), the encyclopedic information from Stiles & Skutch must be readily available (in the car or hotel room). The supplementary information offers an insightful view of a country that for many of us is the ultimate tropical prototype. The species profiles are detailed and yet concise, and the illustrations are both beautiful and representative. If you're a birder going to Costa Rica, don't leave home without it. One additional note - I did buy an inexpensive, worn used copy from which I had a copy service separate the plates from the text and bind each separately. The plates will accompany me in the field. Those plates will probably help me narrow down my diagnostic choices more quickly. For examples, in Garrigues-Dean I have twelve plates for woodcreepers and antbirds, while I have to peruse only four plates from Stiles-Skutch.

Outstanding field guide:
This guide to the birds of Costa Rica contains a wealth of information on where to find the birds, apart from their habits, how to identify them easily in the field, and their typical habitat in Costa Rica. The colored plates are good, although in the case of one or two species, a little on the small side. Overall, outstanding value for money and a tribute to years of painstaking research in the field.

Costa Rica Bird Book:
Outstanding bird guide;accurately illustrate birds allowing me to identify birds that I had never seen before. The book is full of information as to the clima, geography, avian habitats and identifies the names of the birds both in Spanish and English. A must have!