Date: 5/15/25 8:57 am From: '<suscipe...>' via Maryland & DC Birding <mdbirding...> Subject: Re: [MDBirding] SE Asia field guides
Jim,
Late chiming in here. I’ve made a few trips to Malaysia. Highly recommend hiring a guide. If you plan to make it to Fraser’s Hill (Bukit Fraser) north of Kuala Lumpur, there a several guides that help people there on day trips and there are occasional organized group walks there.
As for printed guidebooks, I found Allen Jeyarajasingam’s Birds of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore to be excellent. Very good illustrations. Published by Oxford, my copy was printed in 2012. It contains a map of 30 locations and paragraph descriptions of each. He also produced a photographic guide with Morten Strange which is more of a beginners guide though it does have some location advice mixed in by habitat.
If you have time to familiarize yourself with some songs and calls of common or must see birds, this is a good resource: https://besgroup.org/2012/09/16/checklist-of-bird-calls-and-songs-for-singapore-and-malaysia/.
Hope your trip is great!
David GerstenLaurel, <MDSuscipe...>
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
On Thursday, May 15, 2025, 7:02 AM, Jim Felley <jdfelley...> wrote:
Thank you all for your recommendations. I will look at the Robson guide and 'The birds of Thailand' and 'The birds of Vietnam' with your criticisms in mind.Russ, I definitely spend plenty of time poring over the eBird bar charts for any new place I visit. They are very useful.Thanks again for your commentsJim
On Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 9:50:12 AM UTC-4 Russ Ruffing wrote:
I suggest pulling up the eBird bar charts for the locations and month you’ll be visiting and peruse those. It greatly narrows down the list of birds to familiarize yourself with and the bar charts even give an idea of how likely you’d be to see each species. It’s so much easier than trying to leaf through field guides and decipher species ranges and seasonal distribution.
On Tue, May 13, 2025 at 9:32 AM L Rubey <rubey......> wrote:
Jim: I took an independent birding trip to SE Asia last year and faced the same issue as to "which field guide to bring." My experience: The Craig Robson Helm SE Asia guide was not user friendly as a field guide. The maps and much of the info are separated from the plates, making it a pain to use in the field. And since it covers so many species, in any given area, there are a lot of similar "out of range" species to sift through. It is a good reference to have, but perhaps to leave back at the hotel. That leaves the country-specific guides. The Robson Helm "Birds of Thailand" is more manageable and has range maps on the same page as the plates. The downside is the text is TINY, almost unusable for me in the field. The Birdlife "Birds of Vietnam" by Richard Craik guide is quite good. Interestingly, in this guide, each description on the facing page to the plate has a QR code that links to eBird and the Handbook of the Birds of the World. Not a feature I used though.
In the end, I found myself using Merlin bird packs on my phone almost exclusively. While I too prefer guides with illustrations to those with photos, the ability of Merlin is prioritize by abundance at my specific location was critical. The field guides I brought (too many) were mostly deadweight save for a few times I referred to them in the evening for an ID challenge. Even then, a Google search was often more illuminating than parsing the thumbnail descriptions in the written guides. Good luck!
On Monday, May 12, 2025 at 9:25:08 AM UTC-4 Mike Bowen wrote:
Jim: Better check carefully for each guide to see EXACTLY which countries are included or excluded. "Southeast Asia" -- and especially "East Asia" -- can mean a different set of countries, depending on the author and publisher.
That said, I have heard good things about the Craig Robson book (Helm Guides) which is in its second edition -- although even that is now a few years old. It definitely covers the countries you mentioned.
Mike BowenBethesda
D. H. Michael Bowen
8609 Ewing Drive
Bethesda, Maryland 20817Phone: (202) 236-0510Ambassador for American Bird Conservancy, helping ABC help the birdseBird volunteer Hotspot Reviewer/Editor for Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and the Republic of Ghana
On Monday, May 12, 2025 at 06:24:55 AM EDT, Jim Felley <jdfe......> wrote:
It looks like I'll be going to Southeast Asia next year, visits that will include Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.What is (are) the best field guide(s) that cover this area? I should say that I prefer illustrated guides to photographic. I look forwa4rd to your recommendations, and thanks in advance for your help.
Jim
Jim FelleyClarksburg, MD
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