Eric J. R Amos

Basics: 1991, softcover, 206 pages, 122 species illustrated in color, 220 species discussed, no range maps

There are two primary components of this book. One, it is a location guide to many birding spots one can visit on the island of Bermuda. Two, it is an annotated checklist that details the status of the bird and its seasonal presence on the island. To be clear, this book is not a field guide; however, it does contain illustrations of an average quality.

Of the 340+ species found on this Atlantic island, 220 (residents and migrants) are covered by a standard template of information. First, a timeline calendar with each month displays the abundance and presence of the bird. This offers a quick, easy to read chart of when a bird can be found on Bermuda along with its relative abundance. Brief notes are also given on the bird’s status, its habitat and, a listing of dates to show the range of its spring and fall migration pattern.

The color illustrations are decent and are meant to provide a basic view of the bird. They might be good enough to help identify a bird, but not always since only one illustration is provided. Additionally, the illustrations are not always accurate.

This book serves two purposes. One, it provides documentation of an island’s birdlife and the related status and migration data. In turn, it offers the resident or frequent birder of Bermuda a resource of information that cannot be easily found elsewhere.

If you want a field guide to Bermuda, any one of the eastern field guides to the US will work fine, excluding the few introduced species on the island. The book “A Field Guide to the Birds of Bermuda” by Raine will work despite not containing all species. You may also want to take one of the field guides of the eastern US to help with all the random migrants and vagrants (e.g., shorebirds and fall warblers).

I've listed several related books below...
1) A Field Guide to the Birds of Bermuda by Raine
2) A Picture Book of Birds in Bermuda by Slaughter
3) Field Guide to the Birds of North America by National Geographic
4) A Field Guide to the Birds East of the Rockies by Peterson… (altro)