Book reviews

Book reviews

Read reviews of the books we hold in the Chris Mead Library, written by our in-house experts. A selection of book reviews also features in our members’ magazine, BTO News.

Featured review

All the Birds of the World

Lynx have had a long-term project to produce an exhaustive guide to the birds of the world. It started out with the 17 volumes of the Handbook of the Birds of the World (1992-2013) which has family and species accounts for all birds. This was followed by the two volumes of the Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World (2014-16). They have now published the third and final stage of this avian odyssey with this current book.

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All the Birds of the World

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Shrikes of the World

Author: Norbert Lefranc (author) & Tim Worfolk (illustrator)

Publisher: Helm, London

Published: 2022

Winner of Best Bird Book of the Year 2023Shrikes occupy a strange place in the minds and hearts of ornithologists; at once being attractive passerines, but with a raptorial streak that led to many of ...

Where to Watch Birds in Wales

Author: David Saunders & Jon Green

Publisher: Helm, London

Published: 2022

Following the long-established format of the Where to Watch Birds in… guides, a newly-updated fifth edition of this guide to birdwatching sites in Wales is now available. The addition of new locations ...

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

Author: John Meed

Publisher: Independent Publishing Network

Published: 2022

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 ...

Robin

Author: Helen F Wilson

Publisher: Reaktion Books, London

Published: 2022

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 ...

Field Guide to the Birds of Dominican Republic and Haiti

Author: Steven Latta, , Chris Rimmer , Kent McFarland & Dana Gardner (principal illustrator)

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton

Published: 2022

The island of Hispaniola, comprised of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is among the Caribbean’s most exciting birding destinations. With an excess of 300 species recorded, the island is home to an ...

Australian Bird Guide: Concise Edition

Author: Jeff Davies, Peter Menkhorst, Danny Rogers, Rohan Clarke, Peter Marsack & Kim Franklin

Publisher: Christopher Helm, London

Published: 2022

Although there are many bird books available for birders visiting Australia, the best by far is The Australian Bird Guide. However, this book is somewhat too large, heavy and bulky for use in the ...

Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds: Passerines

Author: Hadoram Shirihai & Lars Svensson

Publisher: Christopher Helm, London

Published: 2021

Many ornithologists already have the multi-volume Birds of the Western Palearctic or the Concise BWP on their shelves. This new work covers almost the same ground geographically, though adding Iran ...

The Pelagic Dictionary of Natural History of the British Isles

Author: Peter J. Jarvis

Publisher: Pelagic Press, Exeter

Published: 2021

This impressive compendium sits somewhere between dictionary and encyclopedia, providing information for 10,000 species of animals, plants, fungi and algae of the British Isles. Detailed descriptions ...

Flight Identification of European Passerines and Other Selected Landbirds: an Illustrated and Photographic Guide

Author: Tomasz Cofta, photographs by Michal Skakuj

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford

Published: 2021

Vis-migging, the art of watching, identifying and recording all of the birds seen flying through and over a particular watchpoint is better known as recording visible migration. The ability to ...
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