Li, Yong Ding & Wen, Low Bing. (2016). The 100 Best Birdwatching Sites in
Southeast Asia. John Beaufoy Publishing: UK. Pages 328.
Reviewed by Gehan de Silva
Wijeyeratne
Sometimes sites receive outstanding billing due to the work
of months or years of scientific expeditions, but are virtually inaccessible on
logistics for visiting birders. It helps enormously when local experts are able
to write a compilation of top sites which take into account the relative
richness of sites as well making a judicious and informed decision on site
selection based on factors such as ease of access, food and lodging, etc. Such
a compilation then can become the basis for more detailed research and for more
current research using the internet.
One audience for this book is people who are not going on an
organised birding tour and want to know if on a general tour, (e.g. a family holiday
with children) if they can fit in some top birding and wildlife sites. Malaysia
and Singapore are two countries with excellent sites that can even be fitted in
on a day trip. Books like this can help to build confidence amongst visitors
and even act as an eye- opener to the larger mainstream travel companies. This
results in more visitor traffic to these sites which can be important for
conservation when locals see their forests as a resource for income and
careers. It also helps the hard-core birders who benefit from uplift to the
quality and range of accommodation.
The book is edited by Yong Ding Li and Low Bing Wen. However,
behind the cover page attribution to the two editors, an expert team has been
brought into play with a number of locally based and visiting researchers, birders
and professional tour leaders. An impressive 28 people are contributing
authors. Members of the UK-based Oriental Bird Club will recognise familiar names
from articles published in Birding Asia and Forktail.
The front sections introduce the reader to Asia's climate,
geography and bird habitats. Not always found in site guides, is a useful
overview to the families of birds found in the region. For example, one learns that 7 species of
megapodes, 105 pigeons and doves, 68 owls, 11 frogmouths, 11 nightjars, 45
kingfishers, 27 species of hornbills, etc. are found in the region. Each
country has a map marked with the handful of chosen sites with a brief overview
of travel practicalities of climate, health and safety logistics. The birdwatching
highlights and the key facts box (number of endemics, number of birds in
country list and top 5 birds) is a useful introduction to anyone who has not
birded in that country. The site accounts also have boxed key facts and a high
level local orientation map. The access & accommodation is clearly written
by people who visit these sites and provide a useful baseline for further
research using trip reports. I have learnt to be wary of any information published
by local tourist authorities. Therefore, books like this and trip reports by
people who have been actually out in the field are necessary for serious
birders and photographers in planning their own trips. Although it is billed as
a guide to the top 100 birdwatching sites, needless to say, this will apply to
wildlife in general.
The end sections include an index to help locate species and
sites. It also has a list of tour operators. I would have liked to have seen a
bigger list arranged by country and those that operate regionally. Internet
searches can be hit and miss in finding suitable tour operators. This is
another reason why trip reports with recommendations are useful. Another good
source of finding out specialist tour operators are the advertisements in the
publications of regional bird clubs such as the Oriental Bird Club, African
Bird Club, Neotropical Bird Club and the Ornithological Society of the Middle
East.
At the start
I said this is not a coffee table book. However, it has plenty of beautiful
images of highly desirable birds to want you to go out to the wilderness areas
of Asia. It is also laid out professionally with a design that makes navigation
intuitive. It makes good use of space to pack in a lot of content without it
feeling busy or too crammed. It's a very different product to some of the
self-published site guides (not to take away from them as these are helpful too).
What is perhaps not obvious to the untrained eye is that a book like this
brings together a few hundred man-years of field time. Hopefully the publisher
will extend this approach to other geographical regions. The obvious audience
for the book is birders and wildlife photographers. But it will I am sure, also
be a helpful resource for travel industry personnel in mainstream as well as
nature specialist companies both in-country and overseas. The appetite for
travel to the wilderness is growing and many mainstream tour operators may want
to fit in an element of wildlife tourism into a standard cultural or round-trip
tour. This book will provide ideas of what is possible and build a connection
between mainstream travel and the more specialist birding and wildlife tours.
As I mentioned before this can only be a good thing for the specialists who
will benefit from an enhanced infrastructure. We see this even in the G7
countries such as the in the UK. The London Wetland Centre is a superb example
of a prime nature reserve which is possible only because a huge volume of
ordinary visitors generate the cash flow to maintain a nature reserve which is
a jewel for birders and photographers.
