Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Best Field Guides for Costa Rica - Day 32

Sadly today is our last day in Santa Elena and we left Camino Verde B&B for Camino Verde Backpackers which is only $7/p.p. It was a little disappointing to move since the backpackers is more crowded with young students but later this became a good quality since over dinner we played cards and exchanged stories and food with some other people.

Over the course of the day we went to many bookstores and souvenir shops. Each store has the same things for different prices so shopping around saved us a fair bit of money since we had the time for it.

Costa Rican field guides were actually fairly cheap in some of these stores. Between Chris and I we got a fair few...

Orchids of Costa Rica by J. Fransisco Morales > One of the only guides to orchids I have seen but not a very good once since it comes in five sets and isn't well organized at all. I could probably use this to write my own new and improved one. Maybe that will be a retirement project in many years to come.

Reptiles and Amphibians of Costa Rica by T. Leeders> The only small guide to reptiles and amphibians of Costa Rica. It was quite comprehensive and has photos for identification. It was cheaper in Costa Rican stores than online in Canada! It is not as comprehensive or detailed as "The Reptiles and Amphibians of Costa Rica by Savage" but his book is about three times the size of this one by Leeders. I do recommend this one for any travelers who would like a guide with them.

Birds of Costa Rica by Robert Dean>A great book for identification of species. Contains very easy to read distribution maps and had illustrated birds for identification. Previously we just had the Princeton Illustrated Checklist of Birds of Central America and Mexico which is an amazing book and I do love it still but the range maps are so much easier to read when it only covers one small country versus all of Central America.

Glass Frogs of Costa Rica by Brian Kubickle> An amazing book by a student of J. Savage. In both English and Spanish it describes glass frogs. A key and photographs are available to identify species. This book wasn't even available for sale on amazon.com!

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