Birding en Espanol

How do you translate the barred owl’s call -- Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you? -- into Spanish?

Translating bird “voices” was one of the trickiest parts of producing “Guia de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamerica,” the first Spanish-language field guide to North American birds. “There have been field guides to Mexico in Spanish, but never one for North America,” says Taryn Roeder of Houghton Mifflin, publisher of the guide.

The book, to be released in May, is the brainchild of birder, naturalist and field guide author Kenn Kaufman. He set out to translate his “Birds of North America” field guide after the 2000 census showed that 28 million people speak Spanish at home.

The text was translated by Patricia Manzano Fischer of Toluca, Mexico, but Hector Gomez de Silva, a Mexican ornithologist, was tapped to write the birds’ voice descriptions in Spanish.

-- Mary Forgione