C. C. Olrog

Basics: 1984, hardcover, 349 pages, 98 color plates, 976 species, range maps; Spanish only

Directly to the point, this is not a field guide you’d want to take into the field or, to even study from in advance of your trip to Argentina. Only out of respect for the author’s efforts and his ornithological background do I not assign just one star for the rating.

Sr. Olrog is an ornithologist and naturalist, but not an artist by any means. His caricatures fail to capture any realistic detail or accurate physical structure. The illustrations exaggerate the field marks he knows are important, but which he is unable to present in a useful way. As an example, the pipits are utterly unrecognizable with massively large black ovals making a symmetric checkerboard on their backs. It must have been very frustrating for Sr. Olrog to know what needed to be painted, but unable to do so himself. I give him credit for being the first to create Argentina’s field guide, which he did in 1959, followed by this second revision.

The text adjacent to the plates is – at best – paltry. The one or two short lines mention only the bird’s habitat. On rare occasions, a few words are thrown in to point out a color difference between two birds.

The range maps are on 48 pages at the rear of the book. These are small and display the entire range of the bird over all of South America. These do not contain specific detail for Argentina, only a generalized range.

This book is entirely in Spanish. English and scientific names are supplied with the bird and are also in the index.

If you buy this book, don’t consider it for use in the field. Instead, it should be viewed only as a collector’s item. Trips to Argentina will require a different book or two (see below).

Other Related Books:
1) Birds of Argentina and Uruguay by Narosky/Yzurieta
2) Birds of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and Antarctic Peninsula by Couve
3) Birds of Chile by Jaramillo/Burke/Beadle
4) South American Birds by Dunning
5) Aves Argentinas y Sudamericanas by Vigil… (meer)