This is the only compact, portable, and user-friendly field guide the novice or experienced birder needs to identify birds in the field in the diverse habitats found in Costa Rica. It features descriptions and illustrations of all 903 species definitely known from Costa Rica, including pelagics and species regular to Cocos Island.

Fifty-six of these species are placed in a Rarities section that includes accidentals, rarer pelagics, and species that have not been reported in more than twenty years. The detailed full-color illustrations show identifying features--including plumage differences among males, females, and juveniles--and views of birds in flight wherever pertinent.

Robert Dean has supplied more than 360 new illustrations, including sixty-four species that are illustrated for the first time in this edition. These include recent additions to the country list, pelagic species, Cocos Island species, and all accidentals recorded from the Costa Rican mainland. Range maps and nomenclature have been updated for this edition, which also has a new user-friendly organizational scheme and an alphabetical quick-find index of groups on the inside back cover.

Few ecosystem destinations are as abundant in their biodiversity as Costa Rica. Having the right field guides in hand can make all the difference when you're enjoying the country's birdlife. Photo Guide to Birds of Costa Rica, which features 549 excellent photographs, is designed to be equally useful for two distinct sets of readers. First are birders new to birding--or new to birding in Costa Rica--who want a guide to the birds that one is most likely to see, as well as to a few of the rarer species that one would hope to encounter. It treats more than 40 percent (365) of the species known from Costa Rica but is a guide to at least 75 percent of the birds commonly seen in a week or so of birding. The book will also be welcomed by experienced birders in search of a companion volume to The Birds of Costa Rica, second edition, an illustrated guide to all the birds of Costa Rica. The photographs in the species accounts in Photo Guide to Birds of Costa Rica are accompanied by names, measurements, field marks, habitat and behavior, voice, status and distribution, and range maps.