Great field guide; it served me well on a trip to Kenya and Tanzania. Beautiful, accurate plates form 1,100 species. It would have been unthinkable not to bring it. The plates are all together in one section and text descriptions are in another. In the months before my trip I marked up the plates pointing out species in range for and most likely to encounter in the field. Although time consuming, it was great practice to become familiar with the birds and the guide. And the payoff in the field was amazing- what a thrill to see lilac-breasted rollers, jacanas, sunbirds, barbets, go-away-birds, wood-hoopoes, and more take flight from the pages into the real world!