Current book reviews

Birds of Japan follows a tried and tested field guide format, with an introductory section on the different habitats found across the islands, followed by the species accounts. All 700 species that have occurred in Japan are included, even those that are recorded as being extinct are illustrated.

The ‘Bat Tree Habitat Key’ is a collaborative project, set up by Henry Andrews to provide a detailed account of how bat species in the UK exploit trees as roost sites. Mainly designed and written for tree-care and ecology professionals, the objective is to provide a practical and systematic framework for finding tree roosts, with defined thresholds for action.

The Refugees from Daffodil Cottage is a children’s fiction book told from the perspective of a flock of birds that lose their home. It teaches about the importance of friendship and the impact that human activity has on birds. It also shows the hardships of the changing seasons birds have to face every year. 

Ploughing a New Furrow primarily focuses on a series of case studies where the author, Malcolm Smith, seeks to gain an insight from farmers who overcome the myriad of challenges of managing a profitable farming business whilst conserving wildlife.

From the Gila Woodpecker excavating nest-holes in desert cacti and the Acorn Woodpecker jamming thousands of acorns into holes in ‘granary’ trees to feed on later, through to the flycatching woodpeckers, the woodpeckers are a more diverse family than one might initially assume. This message is adeptly conveyed in Woodpeckers by Gerard Gorman, with crisp colourful images and easily digestible text.

What are the values that people attach to birds? How do they change over time, and how are the underlying moral commitments then expressed in the legal and practical implementation of conservation? These questions are at the heart of Moral Entanglements by Stefan Bargheer.

Landfill, by writer, radio producer, and one-time ‘ornithological zealot’, Tim Dee, focuses on gulls. It is a far cry from other recent works (Gulls Simplified by Pete Dunne and Kevin Karlson, and Gulls of the World: A Photographic Guide by Klaus Malling Olsen), in that although Tim Dee is undoubtedly knowledgeable about gull ID, behaviour and ecology, much of Landfill is devoted to the way gulls interact with humans and how they have woven their way into our history, culture and folklore.