Blessed birds

This review is from: Field Guide to the Birds of Macaronesia: Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, Cape Verde (Hardcover)

Finally! A field guide to all the birds found in or around the Azores, Madeira, the Savage Islands, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. These Atlantic archipelagos off the coast of southern Europe and northern Africa are, rightly or wrongly, often lumped together to form a region known as Macaronesia (the Isles of the Blessed).

Advanced field guides to European birds usually cover the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands (and, I suppose, the small Savage Islands in between) but not Cape Verde. However, I recently saw a field guide to African birds which didn't cover poor Cabo Verde either, so it seems these isles were blessed with oblivion until this work came along!

Besides, I think it's a good thing that there is a field guide specifically for “Macaronesia”, since many of their birds are endemic species or subspecies, often quite different in appearance from the nominate races on the Euro-African mainland. The total number of species and subspecies covered in this book is 573, so nobody can claim that Eduardo Garcia-del-Ray wasn't thorough!

Otherwise, everything is pretty normal in modern field guide land, with color plates, range maps and species presentations on facing pages. Some of the birds are old classics we loved to ponder already as kids when we got our first Heinzel-Fitter-Parslow, such as the drab Azores Bullfinch, the various subspecies of Common Chaffinch, and the majestic-looking Laurel Pigeons. New favorites may include the “cryptic species” Buglo Petrel. If you can obtain a DNA sample, you may be able to tell it apart from the Cap Verde Petrel!

All in all, this seems like another hit from Lynx Edicions. A Spanish edition exists for those who want local color. Bird-watchers on a chartered flight to these notorious tourist traps are indeed blessed.