Explanation of the distribution tables

The use of colour

The tables with distribution data try to indicate the chance to notice a particular bird in the different regions of Suriname. Of course this chance does depend on the experience of the birder, assumingly a trained observer with knowledge of birdsongs.

The colors used have the following meaning:

common: if you know the bird and you are in its habitat of choice, chances are big that you see it that day
uncommon: there is a good chance of noticing the bird, but certainly not every day
rare: not often seen in this area, so not much chance to notice it
very rare: no observation known (to me) in this area

The different areas

Coast	Coastal region, with a depth from about 100 km in the west to about 30 km in the east
Savanna	A small band (10-50 km) of savanna forests and grass savannas with bushes
Forests	The main part of Suriname
Mountain forests	With elevations from 400-1230m
Sipaliwini	Savanna area on the Brazilian border

A selfmade map of Suriname should accompany this page to indicate the the position of the different areas: I did not find the time yet to make one. But a simple map from the (former) pages of Marco Bleeker will do (with permission and still his copyright).

The partitioning of Suriname in five areas is rather coarse. The main reason is that the number of observations is so low. Apart from easily reachable places, a lot of points on the map have only once been visited by a bird-watcher and outside those spots nobody has reported. Mountain forests means forests on places higher than 400 m. Most observations come from Brownsberg nature reserve. For the Sipalawini region especially there have been only a few visitors and so not many bird observations. The main contributors of bird observations are mentioned in a list. In my database there are over 150.000 observations of one or more birds of a species in a place at a specific date.

Distribution maps for Suriname

As already stated above, the number of places visited by birders and reported to me is only about 500. Also the distribution of these places over Suriname is rather uneven. The map at right shows all places with at least one report. The forest especially is not often visited apart from the Raleigh Falls-Voltzberg nature reserve. In West and South Suriname areas can be found with no visited place within 50 kilometer. Of course it is difficult to get there. Still the number of species reported for the southern part (below 5 degrees North) is greater than for the part above that line.

Distribution maps for South America

For some birds there are maps of the distribution in South America. They are only meant to globally indicate the areas where a bird can be found. They were produced from the general literature as cited on the "books" page.