Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands (I Sinclair and Langrand T, Struik 2003 [2nd edition])
Review: November 2005

The front cover of this beautifully-designed book features six species I couldn’t have put a name to if I’d tried, and its title “Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands - Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, Rodrigues, Seychelles and the Comoros” is mouth-watering. Just the thought that I was actually going need it in the field sent a shiver down my spine. Open it up and (if you’re anything like me) you’ll probably find yourself faced with a cavalcade of names for birds that you’ve never heard of and couldn’t even have placed in a family if you’d had to: what’s a mesite or a jery for example, an oxylabes, a tylas, or an asity?

It’s as if these were some of the last birds ever to be discovered and were so strange that the nomenclaturists ended up making random dips into a bag of Scrabble tiles and these were the letters they pulled out. If you can open this book and not be intrigued, it’s definitely time to hang up your binoculars and take up something other than birding…

Of course, being intrigued is one thing. What counts is being confident that you’ve travelled a long way from home and have arrived with the right book. Helping you decide is of course the reason for this review, so I should mention two things: firstly, there really isn’t another field-guide that covers the region that this one does (so it is the right book - whether any good or not); and secondly, I’ve only used it in Mauritius, so have seen only a small number of the passerines it describes (having said that, I have seen a large percentage of the non-endemic non-passerines that make up about half the guide - either in southern Africa, or in their Palearctic breeding ranges - and have used a lot of different field-guides).

Okay, qualifiers out of the way, on to the review.

“Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands” is written by two of the most-respected names in southern African birding (Ian Sinclair, who has authored more than 15 books, and Olivier Langrand, vice-president of Conservation International and an authority on the birds of Madagascar), and illustrated by four of the best-known bird artists around (Norman Arlott, Hilary Burn, Peter Hayman, and Ian Lewington, who between them seem to have contributed work to most of the books I own). So far so good then…

The guide was born - so the introduction states - on a trip to Madagascar in 1981, when “the daily frustrations we encountered in trying to identify many of the island’s birds, using what was then the only available literature on the subject (Milon et al) were such that we craved a conventional field-guide”. As a statement of intent, that’s perfectly clear. And the fact that it took until 1998 to finally bring the project to fruition surely means that you can be confident that even if you don’t have a clue about the region’s birds - or where to find them - they do.

And, indeed, the Guide opens with an interesting chapter looking at the islands covered by the book, with a map of each and brief discussion of where to find the endemics that are most likely to be the reason why any birder heads off to this part of the world. It’s a good concept, and very useful, though given the rate of habitat destruction throughout the region, a reader might wonder how up-to-date the information is. Listed as being a “second edition” (published in 2003, the original edition was published in 1998), there is no mention of how this edition differs from the first except for a change in the cover: there appears to be no new copyright dates given for updated info or new plates. Frankly it’s a bit of a stretch to claim a new edition on the strength of one or two new scenery photographs - and there are serious errors which should have been corrected, as I discuss later…

The bulk of any field-guide is (or should be) given over to descriptions of the birds. Having used a number of other books authored by Ian Sinclair quite extensively in southern Africa, I expected him to know what he’s describing in this one - and having turned to it on many occasions on my two days in Mauritius, I think my expectations were generally met.

I say “generally” because of one exception I came across: a female (or perhaps”non adult male” - I couldn’t be sure from the text?) Mauritius Cuckoo Shrike I found in the Black River Gorges National Park. The bird I saw looked quite different to the description and illustration on pages 162-3. Obviously I’m not a Mauritius Cuckoo Shrike expert, and it may well be that the one and only female-type bird I saw was in an unrecorded transient plumage or was aberrant in some way - but experience tells me that there are actually very few aberrant individuals of any species, and that I’d be remarkably lucky to find an unrecorded plumage-type on my only visit to the island (though stranger things have happened to people I guess). No, chances are that it’s just not a very accurate portrayal - and that seems important because a Guide is all about inspiring confidence, and just a small dent can be very damaging.

The other species I saw (or am familiar with anyway) seem accurate enough, but my confidence was further damaged by a number of mistakes that should have been picked up during editing - particularly as this is a second edition. For instance the distance scale for the regional map (on page 10) is marked wrongly (I still use Imperial measurements, but I know enough to be certain that 150 km is not a greater distance than 200 miles as is shown), and - much more importantly - the parrots on Plate 104 are mis-labelled, an error which unforgivably includes the introduced Ring-necked Parakeet being given the number that corresponds in the text to the similar-looking but very rare and endemic Echo Parakeet.

There is some careless writing too that a careful editor might have noted. In the description of the Crested Drongo on page 164 we’re told that the species plays “an important role in mixed-flock groups” but left to wonder why; the description of Souimanga Sunbird begins with the words “A very small bird” - at 10cm it is indeed very small, but then so are the other three sunbirds on the same page all of which are also 10cm but whose sizes are not directly referred to; on page 70 the 30cm long Brown Mesite is, we’re told, separated from the Madagascar Flufftail (page 72) by - amongst other things - its larger size: the flufftail is only 14cm long - that’s a huge difference, and they’re entirely different shapes anyway. Overly picky? Perhaps, but that’s the problem with finding editing errors as substantial as mis-labelling Ring-necked and Echo Parakeets: they make you look closely at everything.

If there are slight concerns over the text, what about the Plates? At first glance they are really beautiful - giving life to all those strange names I mentioned before. The pick of the four artists is definitely Ian Lewington, whose detailed passerines leaves you in no doubt that he is confident that he’s producing illustrations that will give the observer every chance to identify the birds that he or she finds on their trip. Take a look at the deft and subtle illustrations on the “Jeries, Warblers” Plate on page 147 for example - though the species involved are all quite similar, the illustrations are so well drawn that I’m pretty sure I’d have more than a fighting chance of separating them in the field.

Unfortunately, the same can’t quite be said for some of the plates by Norman Arlott. The Mauritius Cuckoo Shrike is on one of his plates, for example, and it’s just not very good. In life it has large pale spots on the underside of the tail-feathers. I only know because I saw them - they’re not shown at all in the way that the illustration is presented. Norman Arlott is justifiably regarded as one of the best bird artists in the world, but a number of his birds in the plates here look dark and “blocky”: the Common Mynah on page 163 (again) is almost a silhouette it’s so dark - any fine detail that he may have painted is lost on the page. It’s a shame (and surely a publishing problem rather than fault in the original artwork) because when you add this to the fact that there are editing errors the overall feeling is that this guide isn’t quite as good it was certainly intended to be.

I have no doubt that those involved would have been irritated to find the small problems I’ve referred to: so why didn’t they fix them? What is a second edition for if not to improve on a first edition?

Overall, despite some niggles this is a worthwhile Guide of course. Aesthetically it’s mainly very attractive. It is very well-produced and extremely easy to use. The authors and artists involved are experts in their fields, and the amount of information in here on birds many of us may never even have heard of is huge. It’s undoubtedly an essential buy - it’s just a shame that a user gets the impression that the book still needs a little editing work to finish it off properly…

Summary:
Softback, 184 pages, 71 colour plates. Covering Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, Rodrigues, Seychelles, and the Comoros, this comprehensive field-guide is now in its second (2003) edition - though if you have the first edition you’ll apparently find no changes other than to the cover. There is a wealth of knowledge packed into its pages though, and the (mainly successful) plates are accompanied by a (mainly successful) succinct text highlighting identification, status, habitat and distribution, and call. Beautifully-packaged this slim volume is a perfect size for use in the field and - even if it wasn’t the only guide available - should be considered an essential companion for anyone visiting the region.
ISBN 1-86872-956-7