For each bird, Peterson gives field marks, similar species, and where found (overall and within Texas) as the main information; the latter is useful for elimination. Where appropriate he also has sections for voice and nest. The emphasis on field identification is good, with additional sections showing, for example, silhouettes of accipiters, falcons, kites and harriers to show the differences.

However, many of the plates are black and white, or line drawings, and this is a significant drawback. For that reason I'd recommend John Tveten's The Birds of Texas instead, although it's not as handy out in the field, and has less coverage of casuals and accidentals. The organization of the Peterson is good enough that you might want to get both.

Range identification excellent but, although there is a 1998 date on the book, the names do not agree with current ABA nomenclature. Illustrations and descriptions are separated and minimal use of color limits the usefullness. When used for identification, range information is the most usefull. Not up to the standard expected in connection with the Peterson name.

This guide is good for identifying birds of Texas, the ranges are listed by their proximity to cities. There are no color plates, but the descriptions are pretty good. Would like to see information on feeding. I would recommend a supplemental guide (National Geographic 3rd Ed.) for additional information.

While most people expect wonderful things from Peterson guides, this CD set is sure to let you down.

It's is very limited in the number of birds it covers. And the recordings for each bird are minimal at best.

I own the 1992 edition, which has been very useful. The latest edition is the '92 edition repackaged; the contents are the same. I confirmed this with the publisher. The price has dropped merely because the packaging is cheaper to produce; that's according to their editorial staff.

If you wish to use the Peterson CDs "in the field" with a portable CD player, or if you use it frequently at home, there is something you should know:

Peterson organizes the songs into two CDs, each with about 50 tracks. Each track contains from 2 to 8 birds. If you want to hear a specific bird without hearing others, you can go directly to that bird if your CD player has the INDEX function. An index is like a subtrack.

Herein lies the problem; most portable CD players no longer have the INDEX feature. It was phased out years ago. Thus, you have to listen to all the birds of a track to hear the one you want, and as you get better at birding this becomes tedious.

It should be mentioned that most CD players do have a "search" function which allows you to "fast forward" through a track. But this is awkward to use.

Some makers of bird song collections on CD (e.g. Stokes, new out in May 99) have learned of this problem and have corrected it by recording one bird per track. Stokes also seems to have clearer and longer recordings. However, this format means that the full collection requires 4 CDs. Thus, using Stokes in the field has its own problems.

If you can find a portable CD player with the INDEX function, the Peterson CD works well, especially the Eastern Birds, which is one-volume. I can just plop my portable CD player into the pocket of my field vest, and any time I want to confirm a warbler species I can cue up that bird in an instant. I can quickly INDEX through the birds calls and compare. Peterson gives the bird label and the bird song separate indexes, so you don't have to listen to the announcer naming all the birds. But unless CD player makers change their minds, this convenience may die when my '89 Sony portable does.

This is more or less a rehash of the peterson field guide. It has the same (enlarged) pictures that are in the original guide. In addition, it has the type of food that each bird is likely to eat as well as the range map next to the description. I suppose it's a little convenient to have all the feeder birds grouped together, but , other than that, I felt disappointed with the book. There was some (but not enough) information on actually attracting birds and setting up feeding stations. Personally, I found the Stoke's guide to attracting, identifying and understanding feeder birds to be more helpful.

While it does cover a wide range of wildlife, the drawings themselves are not very realistic - they represent the animal, yes, but not accurately enough to really be used as a teaching field guide, even for non-magors. It'd probably be ok for younger kids, though. There were some magor types of wildlife that I thought should be included that were not (red-tail hawk, box turtle), as well as some that I don't know why they're in there (humpback whale, viruses). The descriptions were short, and included very little as to where the animals were actually found (no idea of range). The plants section was really tiny as well. Needless to say, I'm still searching for a field guide to use in my class.

I love Peterson's Guides, but the birds of Mexico is severely lacking. The art certainly holds up to the standard set by the guides to North America, but unfortunately, it can only be considered complete if you tag along two other Peterson Guides. Perhaps a good addition if you wish to complete your collection of Peterson Guides, but otherwise, buy Howell's or Edward's Guides, both of which far outshine this guide when considered alone. Howell's is certainly the most complete, but Edward's guide is a bit handier in the field.

I ordered this book, used, even though there was an unfavorable review. I have a number of Peterson books and like them all. The Mexican book is the exception. The one I received was from a very old edition, had incomplete illustrations of many birds, making identification difficult to impossible, and did not picture many birds found in other Peterson guide books. It is the worst. The reseller did ship the book promptly but I did not pay attention to the edition date and was unaware that there was a later edition of the book.

Other reviewers have already indicated the limitations of this book: pictures of many species and Spanish names are missing. I would add that the bibliography is lacking up-to-date references to the most usefull other guides about Mexican birds:

- A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, by Steve N.G. Howell and Sophie Webb;

- A field guide to the birds of Mexico and Adjacent Areas, by Ernest Preston Edwards. (revised edition, 1998)

Both these books also have their limitations but they are essential complements to Peterson's guide and Howell and Webb's guide is much more comprehensive.

For Spanish-speaking people I would strongly recommend to buy the Spanish version of Peterson's guide:

- Aves de Mexico. Guía de Campo. (Editorial Diana, Mexico).

This Spanish version includes explanations and pictures of all Mexican birds and it even has the English names (no index of English names, however). Amazon is not stocking this title but perhaps they will, if you insist.

This CD and booklet falls short on several counts. The greatest shortcoming is the grouping of a dozen or more species on a single track. If the bird you want to listen to is at the end, you have to wade through all the others first. And though the sound quality is sharp, the songs are very short. Also, there is but a single call per species, and no accompanying explanation (unlike Lang Elliott's excellent "Know Your Bird Songs" series). I would have to recommend the Stokes'CD over this one.

While most people expect wonderful things from Peterson guides, this CD set is sure to let you down.

It's is very limited in the number of birds it covers. And the recordings for each bird are minimal at best.

You are better off spending your money on the Stokes 3Cd set of Eastern Birds.

Once the standard field guide to bird songs for eastern North America, the Peterson guide (the present edition is its third) has now been largely supplanted by the Stokes guide in terms of usefulness. With over 200 species crammed onto a single disc, the sound samples are pitifully short, which is a shame since most of these recordings (from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's collection) are clear and beautiful. In addition, the Stokes guide only has one or two birds per track, which makes finding the species you want much easier on that CD.

This CD really deserves two reviews, one for its technical merits, which rate highly, and one for its usefulness to the birder, which rates very poorly indeed. So I'll compromise at three stars. If you are on a budget, you can pass this over with the confidence that your pennies will be better spent on Lang Elliott's superb Stokes guide. If you want a little something extra for pleasant listening and have the cash to spend, then go ahead and buy it, but ONLY if the essential Stokes CD is already on your shelf as a definitive reference.

Most of these same criticisms apply to the Peterson guide to western bird songs, which contains two CDs, about 500 species, and must place second to Kevin Colver's western guide in the Stokes series.

I found this book to be informative as a guide to what I would find in Europe, but it received a poor grade in the field due to the poor organization. I had to flip through three sections to find a picture, description, and range-map for each bird. The maps were really too small for a US native to be able to tell which country was which, and the illustrations were consistantly exagerated to the point that you could only identify the so-called important features (which often were the same as important features of other birds) were all you could be certain were accurate to some extent. Even though I don't speak German, I actually found a book in German which was more useful to me than Peterson's. The German book, entitled GU Naturfuhrer "Vogel" (Birds), had accurate photos of every bird I saw on my trip. The maps in Vogel, although lacking lines seperating the countries, were much more identifiable to an American due mainly to size. After identifying the birds by the photos, I compared the scientific names to Peterson's, and was able to identify the birds with their English names (although usually the pictures in Peterson's looked nothing like those in "Vogel"). So as a field guide, Peterson's gets no stars, but for the descriptions and scientific names, it deserves a little credit.