548 Birds in Your Pocket – A Photographic Guide for Birdwatchers in Bolivia

This is not one of the photos featured in the book.

This is not one of the photos featured in the book.

The first “Birds of Bolivia” pocket guide has been published. It contains 548 (or 38%) of the 1415 of the bird species recorded to date in Bolivia, along with photos of each. Although there are some smaller guides on specific regions in Bolivia, Omar Rocha, a biologist specialized in wildlife conservation and one of the authors of the book, states “when we studied birds in Bolivia, we… had to use books published in neighboring countries such as Argentina, Venezuela or Colombia…”


Rocha contacted three national biologists specialized in ornithology: Carmen Quiroga, Sol Aguilar and Omar Martínez. Together, they compiled data they had gathered from their collective years of work. In addition to photos of each species featured, the guide lists each bird’s habitat, the food they eat, their habits, and, in some cases, the degree of threat they face. The 285-page guide contains 600 color photos. The name of each bird is listed in Spanish (common name), Latin (scientific name), and English, primarily for foreigners and birdwatchers.

Bolivia ranks 7th in the world in bird species. In addition to being sold in bookstores in the main cities of Bolivia’s nine states, Rocha hopes to make the book available in airports and in stores near natural parks and reserves that tourists visit (807,000 travelers visited Bolivia in 2010, according to the INE, Bolivia’s National Institute of Statistics).

This is a translated summary of the article featured on this page: Read this article in Spanish.


Source: La Razon Date: 5 June 2012

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