The Birds of Ecuador: Two-Volume Set - Complete Field Guide for Birdwatching & Nature Exploration in South America

A great, thorough book on the birds of Ecuador. But as others have posted TOO BIG to take out into the field! I read other reviews on how they separated the plates from the text, some with mixed results. There were no places where I live that would take the book apart and put it back together, so I thought I would give it a try.Here is what I did- Pic 1 try to bend back the book at the bond edge as much as you can to separate the text from the plates. Slowly cut it apart with an xacto knife or something similar LEAVING the bound glued edge together for each section! I purchased from Amazon some 2" black premium-cloth book binding repair tape to use. I had an old plastic 3-ring binder laying around, so I cut 2 pieces to use as a cover for the plates. I also added one piece of white card-stock to the front and back of the plates next to the cover. The tape is quite sticky so you need to be careful with it- added it to one cover, then wrapped it around the plate pages and the back cover. Need to rub/press on well! (pic 2) Pic 3 shows what it looks like on the inside of the cover and card-stock meet. I suppose you could always add a piece of tape along the seam there too if you want, but the tape is holding it quite well.) Plate 4 shows a page toward the back where some of the strings were cut a bit when I cut the book apart. Where the arrows are (just as an example) shows all the holes where the threads are. I put drops of white glue in each of the holes all the way up and down the page to secure it and then left the book open for the glue to dry. If there are any other pages that have pulled apart a bit, also secure them with a thin line of white glue (but make sure you don't glue any shut or over the birds!) I believe this is probably one of the best ways to do this. If you add any sort of wire binding will mess up the plates - the birds are so crammed in on a page (Definitely one of my DISLIKES of this book!) and so close to the edges, birds would be covered up!Pic 5 shows how I taped the two parts of the text together. IF you buy wider tape, you can probably get away with one piece (but I find narrower tape easier to work with) So I ended up using 3 lengths of tape- first one down the center and then 2 others from the center of the book over the edges of the cover. Again press down well! After using it a while, I did cut a 1" wide length of tape and put It inside the book where the 2 sections met to secure the pages a bit more. I've been handling my books for the last 2 months daily, to study and to write in notes and so far, so good with no problem of them falling apart. I will see in a few weeks how it holds up in Ecuador! I hope this helps others to be able to tackle this on their own! Thanks to the others whose reviews I gleaned on how to tackle this!I really hope that someday the publishers would make this a two volume set! I would gladly have paid a bit more to have the plates seperate to take out in the field.I can't say I LOVE it but I certainly don't hate it so I'd give it 3.5 stars. Here's why:1. I know Ecuador has approx 1600 bird species so obviously if you buy a single field guide it's going to be enormous, and this book is just that. It is huge and very heavy so there's no way you're going to be carrying this around when out in the field.2. I'm not happy about how crammed in the birds are on the color plates (the part of the book with all the illustrations) but maybe they felt they had to because the book is already so big.3. I wish the illustrations were available for purchase separately because I would have been happy to buy just that alone.4. I've read on birding forums that people have removed the illustrations and had that portion bound. The problem I've read is that some binding services end up destroying a lot of the illustrations with the holes so I decided that I would try to bind I t myself and only make 4 small holes per page.I purchased a 1/8 in. puncher from Michael's for $5 (any craft store should have this).I got 4, 1 inch book rings from Office Max ( 20 cents each).I got two heavy duty clear plastic sheets as my book protectors and made a color copy of the book cover.The actual book is still intact but I will be very careful when handling it now since I've compromised its integrity but since I don't plan on travelling with what remains I think I'll be fine.I certainly didn't do a perfect job but I managed to preserve over 98% of the illustrations by doing it myself. I also added some ruled paper at the end of the book so I can make more extensive notes on the species that I find next month, many of which will be firsts for me so I will want room to write my comments.I loved the book but it is almost too big to carry in a pack.Thorough but too large to easily carry. We had little time to study it.Actually, this is volume 2 of a set of two books. But it is this volume that is meant to be taken to the field. For the first time, there is a full set of very useful color plates for one of the core South American countries. It is certainly a great accomplishment to have all the species pictured in color and on a more or less consistent standard. However, I do not agree with other reviewers who rave about the plates. Too many of the bird pictures have an overall flat appearance, with the color rendition being too simplistic or too bold. And while a good number of the birds are depicted in good or even in unnecessarily large size, others would have benefitted from a larger sized rendition. Just because a species is small does not mean it has to be depicted in a diminutive size, unless there are larger species of the same group on the plate. Thus, while the plates are most useful, it is nevertheless disappointing to see that the overall standard (except for the plates being all in color) is rather lower than what was already published decades ago e.g. in "Birds of Colombia".The book has excellent range maps and very helpful comprehensive texts. However, a somewhat more compact layout would have allowed for a smaller overall size of the book. The way to do it is being demonstrated in the book itself. The texts facing the plates use the suggested compact layout most convincingly. Spanish bird names are given in the main text, but, unfortunately, there is no index for them.(This is an adapted review I originally published in 2002 for the so-called slipcased two-volume edition. As it concerned the fieldguide, but disappeared, here it is again.)The art work is good and the text is very good the only problem is the size and weight. Like all amazonian country's they are blessed with too many birds, in Ecuador's they have nearly two thousand species. Which makes making a field guild which would be easy to carry around in the field awkward. I wish company's like Helm would make each country's birds with the artwork and some brief Tex all in one book, and if you wanted more Tex that could be put in a separate book, a book that covers the whole continent. Lets face it if you were looking for a book to take on holiday with you and when you see the size of this book you will probably put it back on the shelf. I nearly didThis is a first class field guide with excellent colour plates. I would have given it a max of 5 stars but for its weight - about 2 kilos! To travel with that in your day sack is asking a bit much. Having said that it is very good value and worth it just for the plates. For the first time ever I have cut the binding and rebound it as two volumes - the plates and the narrative. I'll be taking the plates with me but will leave the narrative behind to use as a reference. This is still the definitive field guide to the birds of Ecuador.Very useful guide, the birds are all so different over there. However this really helped me find what I had seen.Have operate pages for descriptions, locations and drawings which makes rather more difficult!Until the (delayed) new Restall field guide comes out this remains the standard work on Ecuador. But it isn't a field guide unless you have a massive pocket and want to risk a hernia.This must be one of the best bird books ever produced.If going to Ecuador ,this is invaluable.It is a little bulky for a field guide but it is packed from cover to cover with invaluable information.A must buy for any naturalist