An updated version of the previous Photographic Guide to birds of the same region, which dates back to at least 2002 (pub date in India; published in 2003 by Princeton UP). The new book has a much improved look and feel, which comes with pros and cons. All the species accounts in the old book were black type on white background, with "flat" range maps. A bit boring, but very easy to read.

The new book has a few unalloyed pluses over the old one: there are many more photos of each species (over 4000 images, as compared with 1000 in the previous book), of much higher quality, with images of birds in flight, at rest, and in the "typical" field guide pose. Truly, the age of digital photography and advanced birding techniques is paying off here. The book includes 500 more species than the previous version (1300 as opposed to 800). Also, the taxonomy in the book has been updated, which is very helpful to birders trying to keep up with the ever-changing scientific names, species lumps and splits, etc.

The other improvements, though, come with a few negatives. The new spreads include photographic backgrounds behind the text, and the range maps have much more topographic detail. Unfortunately, that updated layout and those more complicated maps make the information presented in the book a bit harder to read. White text over colored backgrounds makes the text recede in importance; the wonderful relief of the maps would be great if the map were full page, but at the thumbnail size, it's sometimes difficult to make out where the birds are expected to occur.

All in all, while the new book is much more fun to look at, the old version might have been a bit easier to use. That said, the new book is so much bigger and more current than the old one that there is no excuse not to update your library with this one. ( )