Mubashir Hasan

Basics: 2001, hardcover, 368 pages, color photos of 225 species, no range maps

Covering the Indus River Valley that runs primarily through Pakistan, this book provides a color photo and general overview of 225 (1/3) of the 745 birds found in the country. Not truly a field guide, this book introduces the casual birder to a variety of the region’s birds.

The color photos for the birds are not good. Their quality ranges from poor to fair. Many of the photos are blurry, many are too distant or small, and others don’t present a decent pose. The color and quality of the photos seem like they came from a low-cost printer used at home. For some of the birds (warblers, shorebirds), you’ll need to trust the author’s identification instead of the photo. One of the photos appears to be misidentified. The Red-necked Grebe appears to be a Little Grebe (note the yellow eye. red cheek, and light patch at base of beak).

The text varies between 1 and 2 paragraphs for each bird. This information gives generic descriptions of the birds and provides other basic background information on feeding, behavior, and distribution.

The index of English names is arranged quite differently. The list is alphabetized by the full name of the bird (e.g., Brown-headed Gull instead of Gull, Brown-headed). This causes problems when the bird has multiple common names. If you try to look up Plum-headed Parakeet you won’t find it unless you look under Blossom-headed Parakeet instead. There’s no way to look at a list of names for all Parakeets, or any other group of birds.

This book might be of interest to the local birders of the Indus but, with the variety of superior field guides available as alternatives, I can’t really recommend this book to anyone else.

I’ve listed several related books below…
1) Birds of Pakistan: Volumes 1&2 by Roberts
2) Birds of South Asia - Volume 1 & 2 by Rasmussen
3) Breeding Birds of Kashmir by Bates
4) Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan: Volumes 1-10 by Ali/Ripley
5) A Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives by Grimmett/Inskipp
6) Birds of India by Grimmett/Inskipp
7) Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Grewal
8) A Field Guide to Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Kazmierczak
9) A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India by Grewal… (plus d'informations)