Book reviews:    Birds of India

	Title
	Birds of India
	Author
	Martin Woodcock
	ISBN
	0 00 219712 X
	Edition
	1980
	Publisher
	HarperCollins Publishers
	Pages
	176
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	Not (yet / anymore ?) available from Amazon

This is a small bird guide by Collins about birds of India, Nepal, Pakistan Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It is the same size as the Common Birds of East Africa, also by Collins. But for such a vast area this is a rather small book. The book pretends to cover 545 species, but unfortunately it does not. Only the more common species are shown with color drawings. The text does not give any identification help, just a few lines about where you could find such a bird.

A large portion of the 545 species are covered only on the family level. This means that there is only a short description of the family or one species of that particular species. These birds are only shown in black and white drawings. Unfortunately there are no distribution maps for any of the bird species. For the area it pretends to cover this would certainly be necessary.

Conclusion: As this is published in 1980, it is getting already a bit older. But this doesn´t need to be an excuse. It does not cover what it pretends to cover. Not all species have drawings, some of them only in black and white. Those that have color drawings are not always great quality. Buy this book? I would not recommend it. There are much better books on the subject, like this one.

All text and images © 1991 - 2011 Hans Martens
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