Ben Rothery's Weird and Wonderful Animals (cover)

Ben Rothery’s Weird and Wonderful Animals

Ben Rothery
Ladybird Books, London 2023
ISBN: 9780241532294
Hardback

Divided into sections covering some of the world’s strangest creatures found inhabiting the air, earth and water, Ben Rothery’s latest children’s book takes the reader on a journey peppered with some astounding facts and figures, and truly outstanding illustrations. The book touches upon 16 categories of animal, and these range from single species, such as the Bearded Vulture, Paradise Flying Snake and Giant Anteater, to an entire phylum in the case of the tardigrades.

Haunted by the last tide (cover)

Haunted by the last tide: The SWLA in the Danish Wadden Sea

Colin Williams (text), Marco Brodde (editor)
Society of Wildlife Artists, London 2023
ISBN: 9788793477216
Hardback
The result of two two-week trips by 19 artists, all members of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA), this beautiful book documents the birds and landscapes of Denmark’s Waden Sea National Park. While the artistic styles vary, from pencil and watercolour to oil and scrap metal sculpture, the similarities of tones used – drawn from the places visited – create a unifying vision of the area’s rich wildlife and haunting presence.
Be a Birder (cover)

Be a Birder: The Joy of Birdwatching and How to Get Started

Hamza Yassin
Gaia Books 2023
ISBN: 9781856755092
Hardback

Hamza Yassin is well-known for his work as a wildlife cameraman and presenter. He has worked on a whole host of television programmes, including David Attenborough’s Wild Isles, and has presented his own documentaries, in between winning Strictly Come Dancing of course. His new book, Be a Birder, is a truly joyful introduction to the world of birdwatching and never fails to spark enthusiasm in the reader. Although aimed at beginners, this book is excellent for any level of birdwatcher – I’ve certainly learned some new facts through reading it.

The Norfolk Plover (cover)

The Norfolk Plover: A Study of the Stone-curlew

Chris Knights
Wild Breckland Books 2023
ISBN: 9781399955690
Hardback

Back in 2002, one of my first jobs in conservation was being part of a four-person RSPB team that monitored and protected the nests of Stone-curlews in the Breckland area of Norfolk, and my love of Stone-curlews is still as strong today. The patch I was assigned to was an estate farmed by Chris Knights, which had a well-trained team of gamekeepers and farm staff who were very adept at finding and protecting the nests. This patch is the inspiration for his book, which looks at Chris’s lifelong interest in these fascinating birds.

Fergus The Silent (cover)

Fergus The Silent

Michael McCarthy
YouCaxton Publications 2021
ISBN: 9781914424380
Softback

Michael McCarthy is perhaps best known for his environmental journalism and nature writing. His skills were recognised by BTO back in 2011, when he was awarded the annual Dilys Breese Medal for outstanding communication of science to new audiences.

Birdsplaining (cover)

Birdsplaining: A Natural History

Jasmine Donahaye
New Welsh Review, Aberystwyth 2023
ISBN: 9781913830168
Softback

The author herself acknowledges in her opening note that some offence may be taken by the title, but Jasmine Donahaye’s collection of short essays is much more than it first seems. She elucidates a multi-faceted explanation for Birdsplaining, adding to the anticipated definition the notion of using birds as a way to explore the relationship humans have both to each other and to the natural world, as well as seeing in them a means to understand personal experience.

At the Very End of the Road (cover)

At the Very End of the Road

Phillip J Edwards
Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath 2021
ISBN: 9781849954976
Softback

This book takes you through a year on the author, Phillip Edward’s, home ‘patch’ – a complex area of farmland, saltmarsh, river and coastline. Each chapter covers a calendar month, describing in intricate detail encounters with not just birds but mammals, plants, insects and everything else. Britain's fickle weather provides a backdrop to the seasonal changes. Each month is split into eight different accounts of an observation or discovery from that period. 

The Hen Harrier's Year (cover)

The Hen Harrier’s Year

Ian Carter (Author) & Dan Powell (Illustrator)
Pelagic Publishing, London 2022
ISBN: 9781784273859
Softback

On one day every month throughout winter for the past 40 years, a band of hardy volunteers has layered up with thick clothes, filled up a flask with something warming, and ventured forth to a reedbed, rough field, or heath to watch, and to wait.

Finding W. H. Hudson (cover)

Finding W. H. Hudson: The Writer Who Came to Britain to Save the Birds

Conor Mark Jameson
Pelagic Publishing, London 2023
ISBN: 9781784273286
Softback

Of American parentage, William Henry Hudson was born in Argentina in 1841. Arriving in London in 1874, he struggled for some years to make ends meet, before making his name as a naturalist. Hudson is best known for his nature writing, most notably The Naturalist in La Plata, Birds in a Village, Birds in London, and Hampshire Days, but he also wrote a handful of novels; these were significantly less successful than Hudson’s other books, with the author regarding the whole literary business as a poor second to his true vocation, that of naturalist.

Better Living Through Birding (cover)

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

Christian Cooper
Penguin Random House, New York 2023
ISBN: 9780593242384
Hardback

When starting Better Living Through Birding, I was not sure what to expect.

Cooper is perhaps most widely known in the UK for the infamous incident in Central Park in 2020, but after reading this book I hope he will be best known in the birding community for his profound connection with birds, his eloquent prose, and his inspiring and often comical insights into the world of birding.

Robin (cover)

Robin

Helen F Wilson
Reaktion Books, London 2022
ISBN: 9781789146264
Softback

As part of the Reaktion books’ ‘Animal’ series, Helen F Wilson brings together the various ways that Robins have permeated our culture, whether in books, folk stories, newspaper stories, adverts or artwork. As you work your way through the book for every poem or picture you’ll be familiar with, there are another 10 that will be completely new and often surprising. 

This is all underpinned by knowledge and research on the actual bird, showing how much of the folklore around Robins is from attempts to understand them.

A haven for farmland birds (cover)

A haven for farmland birds: the unexpected treasures of a small patch of arable land in the Cambridge green belt

John Meed
Independent Publishing Network 2022
ISBN: 9781800688216
Softback

John Meed’s succinct capsule of the relationship between farmland bird abundance, behaviour, breeding success, and land management on a small patch of East Anglian farmland encompasses so much more than the kilometre square his feet have clearly lovingly tramped for a decade.

Flight Paths (cover)

Flight Paths: How the Mystery of Bird Migration Was Solved

Rebecca Heisman
Swift Press, London 2023
ISBN: 9781800752924
Hardback

This fascinating book opens with a question: where do the birds go? People have, of course, been asking this question for centuries, and over time our knowledge has increased enormously and, indeed, is still increasing – from BTO’s own work revealing new migration routes of Cuckoos to the recent revelation that Scottish Red-necked Phalaropes winter off the Pacific coast of South America. The book does not answer this question directly but delves into the question of how we know where birds go.

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife (cover)

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife

Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott
Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2023 (2023)
ISBN: 9781399403245
Softback

Gardens cumulatively make up a huge habitat in the UK and for those of us lucky enough to have a garden they have the potential to host all sorts of amazing wildlife. This book is a remarkably comprehensive guide to almost everything that might share a space with humans. It covers much, much more than just birds. Species account for our feathered friends cover less than a fifth of the book. Mammals are covered in a good level of detail (although Red Squirrels are in every sense displaced by their grey cousin, and Pine Marten doesn’t feature).

RSPB Pocket Guide to British Birds (cover)

RSPB Pocket Guide to British Birds

Marianne Taylor & Stephen Message (illustrator)
Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2022 (2022)
ISBN: 9781472994721
Softback

This book may be small but packs quite a punch – more than 300 species of bird are covered. Each species account gives you illustrations (especially good for waders where the images used highlight key id features), ‘key features’ to look for with explanations about how to identify the species, short descriptions of song and call, where to see the bird and a brief summary of movements and population. It’s like a condensed version of the RSPB’s excellent Handbook of British Birds.