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Product Description
Product Description
Written by Dr. Paul Sterry, leading wildlife expert and author, this beautifully presented guide to more than 500 species of bird includes magnificent artwork by leading bird artists. This is an ideal family reference book, with strong gift appeal for anyone with an interest in bird watching. The guide is presented in full colour throughout, with authoritative and concise writing from leading ornithologists. Each species entry includes at least one illustration, distribution map and detailed background information, e.g. habitat, feeding habits and flight behaviour. Also included is advice on the best times and places to view the more secretive or rarer birds.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book on the encouragement of Amazon.co.uk ("we notice that you are interested in natural history"), offering me a good reduction if I pre-ordered. I was just then engaged in the annual winter Bird Count (under the auspices of "OBSnatur" in collaboration with the Danish Ornithological Society). These counts are open for anyone, also novices like me. I thought the book would help me distinguish the birds that are rather similar. Having tried to use it, I am in doubt who the authors had in mind as potential readers/users of this book.
The most fatal error is that the index is incorrect. If you are considering acquiring the book, make sure it is not this first edition. The index goes crazy at page 122, (the pratincoles), recovering again at p. 300 (some of the buntings). So, if you want the starling, you get the eagle owl instead, both of course speckled. If you are looking for the hawfinch, you get the ring-necked parakeet. If you really want the hawfinch, you have to read the whole book.
In my garden in January, there were individual great tits in the every shade from the well-known smart yellow and black plumage to an extremely dark bird where the diagnostic stripe was blurred all over the breast. The drawing on page 256 shows a bird with the stripe drawn down the side of its breast. This is so misleading it should have been re-drawn. The text tells me that juveniles are drab - but is drab the same as dark, and are there still juveniles in January? Well, don't ask me, I have no idea and the book does not enlighten me. When we study the coal tit, which my dark bird could conceivably have been, the photographed bird is turned so that the breast, carrying the diagnostic non-stripe, and perhaps non-blur, is turned away from the reader.
Investment in some critical editing would have been a good idea: e.g. the dunnock page 219 is said to have "a weak, truncated warble", while the legend to the photograph describes it as "the lively, warbling song " Please decide, as a novice, I need to know.
I have also the suspicion that some of the photographs employ taxidermists' specimens - they have the scruffy look and improbable perches characteristic of these. Look at the poor little serin on page 190, (index, page190, takes you back to the roller) and what about the short-toed lark on page 203 (p.202 in the acknowledgments), and the short-toed eagle p. 78? Many of the warblers are similarly tacky. Any bird you like to choose in my garden is sleeker than these.
Is there anything good about this book? Yes, the combination of the photographs and the drawings is very helpful for a novice. Many of the photos are wonderful. The distribution maps are interesting. It is nice to sit in the sofa and dream about the birds you don't see every day. But I suggest next time that the publishers let a novice read the proofs.
The most fatal error is that the index is incorrect. If you are considering acquiring the book, make sure it is not this first edition. The index goes crazy at page 122, (the pratincoles), recovering again at p. 300 (some of the buntings). So, if you want the starling, you get the eagle owl instead, both of course speckled. If you are looking for the hawfinch, you get the ring-necked parakeet. If you really want the hawfinch, you have to read the whole book.
In my garden in January, there were individual great tits in the every shade from the well-known smart yellow and black plumage to an extremely dark bird where the diagnostic stripe was blurred all over the breast. The drawing on page 256 shows a bird with the stripe drawn down the side of its breast. This is so misleading it should have been re-drawn. The text tells me that juveniles are drab - but is drab the same as dark, and are there still juveniles in January? Well, don't ask me, I have no idea and the book does not enlighten me. When we study the coal tit, which my dark bird could conceivably have been, the photographed bird is turned so that the breast, carrying the diagnostic non-stripe, and perhaps non-blur, is turned away from the reader.
Investment in some critical editing would have been a good idea: e.g. the dunnock page 219 is said to have "a weak, truncated warble", while the legend to the photograph describes it as "the lively, warbling song " Please decide, as a novice, I need to know.
I have also the suspicion that some of the photographs employ taxidermists' specimens - they have the scruffy look and improbable perches characteristic of these. Look at the poor little serin on page 190, (index, page190, takes you back to the roller) and what about the short-toed lark on page 203 (p.202 in the acknowledgments), and the short-toed eagle p. 78? Many of the warblers are similarly tacky. Any bird you like to choose in my garden is sleeker than these.
Is there anything good about this book? Yes, the combination of the photographs and the drawings is very helpful for a novice. Many of the photos are wonderful. The distribution maps are interesting. It is nice to sit in the sofa and dream about the birds you don't see every day. But I suggest next time that the publishers let a novice read the proofs.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The pages on the index were incorrect to the position in the book. Although delivery was fast it did not compensate. Very disappointed with this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Especially this year,when we have seen so many birds in our garden, this book has been invaluable for deciding which birds are feeding on our feeders.We keep it oiut at all times.Very helpful.
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