Swallows of Costa Brava

A review of "The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide" by Garrigues & Dean

This is a field guide to the birds of Costa Rica, a Central American nation. It's intended to as a complement to an older book by two different authors, “A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica” by Gary Stiles and Alexander Skutch. That book is apparently too heavy to bring out on the field, hence this volume. However, Garrigues & Dean still recommend Styles & Skutch for more in-depth information on the Costa Rican birds.

Note that this book exists in two slightly different editions. The second edition is more complete. It illustrates more bird species, and also includes the avifauna of Cocos Island, a Pacific island controlled by the Costa Rican government. The field guide is unusual in the sense that it doesn't follow the standard systematic order, but instead places similar-looking birds in the same section. Thus, swallows and swifts (which are not closely related) are placed together. I'm not sure if this is good or bad…

I never visited Costa Rica, instead spending some hours at a Nicaraguan airport only months after the Sandinista revolution. But that's another story, even besides from the fact that I didn't see any swallows. Or swifts, for that matter.