HANDBOOK OF BIRD FAMILIES: Natural History Museum

BBC Wildlife said of this book, 'Encyclopaedic in both ambition and achievement, and a tome to be treasured.' Very glamorous and super heavyweight softback with glossy white paper and over 200 colour photos, lively text and informative fact boxes, the book includes the latest research and data and special photography from award-winning wildlife photographers such as David Tipling. Expert ornithologist Jonathan Elphick provides facts about the world's 36 orders and 234 families of birds, revealing their diversity, appearance, behaviour and lifestyle from gannets and boobies, pelicans and penguins, flufftails and nightjars, sunbittern and grebes, turkeys and grouse, megapodes and magpie goose, screamers and kiwis, rheas and tinamous, ostriches and all the others. Which is the rarest parrot or the most endangered hummingbird? What is the difference between a swallow and a swift? Social behaviour, nest, fledgeling period, food, voice, migration and conservation status are all included for each entry and the sheer quality of the photography cannot be exaggerated. 416pp, large softback, 25.3 x 19.7cm.