Guía de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamérica

by Kenn Kaufman. Translated by Patricia Manzano Fischer.

Voice descriptions in Spanish by Héctor Gómez de Silva.

In May 2005, Houghton Mifflin Company published one of their first Spanish-language nature books, and the very first field guide to North American birds to be published in Spanish:  Guía de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamérica. In an interview in February 2005, Kenn Kaufman described the motivation for producing this guide: “I'm a believer in the idea that we'll have more support for wildlife conservation if we have more people interested in nature. The Hispanic population is such a large and dynamic part of the U.S. citizenry ... Naturally a high percentage of Hispanic Americans are totally bilingual, and could easily use an English-language bird guide if they wanted to. However ... the 2000 U.S. Census showed that over 28 million people in this country speak Spanish at home. It seemed logical to produce a bird guide in the language with which they would be most comfortable."

The text for the guide was translated into Spanish by Patricia Manzano Fischer of Toluca, Mexico. At the time, she was Project Director for the conservation organization known as Agrupación Dodo A.C., coordinating their environmental education and bird conservation work.

Because the voices of birds are hard to describe, and the subtleties of bird sounds are very difficult to translate, new voice descriptions in Spanish were written for most species by the Mexican ornithologist Héctor Gómez de Silva.  

The illustrations and maps in the Spanish version are the same as those in the English-language Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America. The Kaufman guides are the first in the world to be illustrated with photographs that have been digitally edited for accuracy and direct comparability.  Like its English counterpart, the Guía is designed to make the first steps in bird watching as easy and enjoyable as possible.

The Spanish version, Guía de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamérica, is available through the same channels as any bird book produced by a major publisher in the U.S.: through book stores, nature centers, Audubon shops, wild bird stores, wildlife refuge shops, or via the online retailers. In addition, an innovative program of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (headquartered in Oak Harbor, Ohio) is making it possible for people to buy copies of the book at a discounted rate and have them donated directly to educational programs in various parts of the United States and northern Mexico; details of the program are here.

Guía de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamérica. Published 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. ISBN: 0-618-57424-7

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