CROSSLEY ID GUIDE: Britain and Ireland

Billed as "The most user-friendly guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland", this soft-backed chunky volume would just about fit in a capacious pocket, certainly a rucksack, and covers over 300 different common species. The Unique Selling Point of the volume is the illustrations. Each bird is presented in close-up photography from a number of different angles, sometimes as many as ten, against a typical background, but instead of the usual long-range shot without much detail, the close-up photos are presented in montage, so a far greater degree of clarity and accuracy is achieved. The first 12 pages consist of thumbnail quick identifiers of all the birds, categorised as swimming, flying or walking waterbirds, followed by upland gamebirds, raptors, miscellaneous larger landbirds, and songbirds. The main text for each bird includes the bird's length next to the name of the species, given with the English and scientific names. On each plate, plumage, age and sex are labelled, and the text describes population, behaviour, flight, identification points, and general quirks and peculiarities. The song is described, though this is a challenge: the whimbrel has "a 7-note tittering call pupupu" while a waxwing has "a distinctive, trilled sree, sibilant like a pea-whistle". Described as a "birders' favourite", the waxwing can eat up to a thousand berries a day and is often found in car parks, immune to human activity. Apart from the birds themselves, the photos of habitat are also gorgeous. 302pp, softback, colour photos.
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