Birds of Southern India (Helm Field Guides)

I bought both southern and northern india, great publisher, nice quality info and illustrations

Doesn't have distribution maps, but the text has a list of states where each species is found, with a code for whether it is common, winter visitor, etc. I found this good enough (with the brief habitat description) to narrow down what I was likely to be seeing on my trip to Kerala. Moreover, having the limited number of species in Southern India helped to narrow the search when trying to identify a bird, and made the book nice and light to carry in my luggage and in the field. Text is brief, numbers of pictures of each species less than in say Collins Birds of Europe. But both text and pictures are useful and high quality. The unconventional order of the species is extremely annoying, having got used to the usual system, and it doesn't even put things that look like each other close together, if that was supposed to be the idea. I also bought Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, which is a bigger, better, more up-to-date book with distribution maps and more detailed text, but weighs much more and contains many species not found in Southern India. I left it at home, but enjoyed looking things up in it when I got back.

Purchased for a trip to Goa, great book very informative good pictures of the birds. A very good product I would recommend this book for the novice bird watcher.

Although not a true ornithologist, I needed information for my recent visit to the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary (Thattekkad, Kerala). There are very few good guides currently in publication which are specific to the birds of Southern India - and this is one of those. I found it indispensable, even though I was fortunate to be accompanied on my visit by Jijo Mathew, a local expert provided by the manager of the Hornbill Camp at which I stayed. I also used it for rerefence after walks in the Erivakulam Rajamalai National Park and the Lake Periyar forest, and during three days spent on a boat on Kerala's backwaters. It's profusely illustrated and well indexed by family and species, making it relatively straightforward to identify what you've just seen. At over 400 grams in weight and almost A5 size (actually 215x135mm), it's not pocket-sized. I guess it would be difficult to cram so much information into anything smaller while keeping it legible but, because it added to the burden on my shoulder in the often humid and tiring environment of South Indian forests, I deducted a star!

well produced. Would be better with photos but is comprehensive and probably not all photos available. Probably nothing better out there

As it had all the birds we had seen on our India holiday, the new owner is delighted

I have bought this book to use with the Collins Handguide to Birds of the Indian Subcontinent for a visit to Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It certainly covers a more comprehensive number of Southern species than the Collins book but the information on each is not as good for habitats and distribution and the illustrations are not nearly as detailed and naturalistic. But I am on a holiday not a bird watching excursion, and I am confident that between the two I shall be able to enjoy all the birds that I see and have a good stab at identifying them.

Lovely book arrived promptly.

Every now and then, from the windows of my Mumbai apartment I see some interesting birds ...between two crows. The book comes in handy to figure out what they are (even crows I know know have various types!). Well referenced and lovely colour plate. Very useful to learn about the Indian aviary.

Given the scarcity of books on this subject, I was delighted to find a used copy at a bookstore in California. The illustrations were quite good and the descriptions reasonably comprehensive. We took a 2 day/2 night houseboat tour through the backwaters of Kerala and saw many birds that we would have been unable to identify had it not been for this helpful book.

THE BASICS: softcover; field guide contains 87 good quality color plates of 600+ species found in the southern half of India; a brief amount of text offers a description of each bird and sometimes notes on habitat and vocalizations; no range maps THE REVIEW: This southern guide is a trimmed down offshoot of the author's previous and much larger work: A Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. This reduced version for southern India is a true field guide-sized book that focuses on just those birds found in India's six southernmost states; in other words, all of India south of Mumbai (aka, Bombay). The 600+ species found in the south are illustrated quite well in 87 plates. Most of the birds are shown with multiple plumages when significant differences exist between genders, age, or subspecies. These illustrations are good enough to identify most species and will be helpful for even the more difficult families with look-alike species. Each plate contains 4-10 species, made up of 9-30 illustrations. Some of the plates, especially the raptors and shorebirds, are notably congested with 25-30 illustrations of perched and flying birds. This higher count of illustrations causes many of the birds to appear a bit small. Fortunately, this does not negatively affect the identification. The text is the weaker part of this book, which is true for each of its sister-books (Northern, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan). Each bird receives just 3-15 lines across from the plate to describe it. There is no other text or information provided. This text may not always be sufficient to differentiate between many of the more similar birds; thus, there will be a higher reliance on the plates. Sometimes an additional line or two is offered about the bird's habitat or distribution. The raptors receive the most coverage while the passerines receive the least (e.g., just 3-4 lines). There is only the sparsest of information given for vocalizations on some of the birds. There are also no range maps. To help supplement the relatively thin text on identification, seven tables are included as appendices in the back of the book. These tables provide a comparison list of the more difficult bird groups such as nightjars, warblers, and the Yellow Wagtail subspecies. This information gives some very useful plumage details that should be examined. This guide will serve you well in southern India and is probably the second-best option, aside from the author's parent-book Birds of India. Another superior but more expensive book is Birds of South Asia by Rasmussen. If you're looking at other titles by the authors, (Grimmett & Inskipp) keep in mind this southern guide is a sister-work of the northern guide, which each come from the combined (but still condensed) Birds of India. These three books share many of the same plates and text. The combined larger version includes range maps for all the birds of the country. Basically, if you own Birds of India, you already own everything in this southern book. As another comment, these three books all come from the aforementioned larger work that has everything along with extensive, in-depth text. -- (written by Jack at Avian Review with sample pages, September 2008)

This was just what i wanted. Good pictures of the birds, often both flying and perched. Notes as to relative occurance in each of the states, and preferred habitats which was also helpful. It was just the regions I was going to, and didn't have so many birds from other regions that it was heavy and cumbersome to use (like a pacific islands birdbook I took to Hawaii).