Martin S. Adamian

Basics: 1997, hardcover, 220 pages, 61 color plates, 346 species, range maps for each bird

This is a marvelous gem of a book. It covers all the birds of Armenia, a tiny country the size of Maryland found on the eastern border of Turkey. The highlight of this book is the plates.

The illustrations are very nicely done, with good color, detail, and postures. Nearly all of the relevant birds have multiple illustrations to show the gender plumages. The illustrations will certainly aid you with identification, as I experienced when looking at the wheatears and wagtails in the field.

It’s a good thing the plates are done with quality. They help to compensate for the lesser amount of text. Although most of the descriptions are decent, they are sometimes a bit too brief. They certainly lack sufficient information to help with the warblers. But, to be fair, they are good with the wagtails. Because this book was intended to be a field guide, I’d recommend dropping the generic descriptions of the nest, eggs, and food in place of more descriptive information on the bird’s identification.

The maps at the end of the book are larger than usual and offer very good detail with cities, rivers, and four different colors. Each map appears to have been individually crafted for the bird. As the ranges vary, the names of the nearby towns also change to offer more specific detail. I’ve never seen so much attention go into range maps.

One quirk in this book caught my eye: There is no white space on any of the pages. Instead of filling in more information, the font size of the text is scaled up or down to make each page appear equally full.

This book will be very helpful for you in the surrounding countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and eastern Turkey. I recommend taking one of the European guides to help supplement the text of this book.

Other Related Books:
1) Birds of Europe with North Africa and the Middle East by Jonsson
2) Birds of Europe by Mullarney/Svensson, Zetterstronm/Grant
3) Field Guide to the Birds of the Middle East by Porter et.al.
4) Birds of the Middle East and North Africa by Hollom et.al.
5) Birds of Fauna of Ukraine: The Field Guide by Fesenko
6) Raptors and Owls of Georgia by Galvez/Gavashelishvili/Javakhishvili
7) The Birds of Azerbaijan by Patrikeev… (plus d'informations)