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 (2014–2016). 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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The Meaning of Geese

Author: Nick Acheson

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK

Published: 2023

3rd place in Best Bird Book of the Year 2023 Migratory geese fall into that group of species that have an accompanying cultural resonance because their arrivals and departures mark the changing ...

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 ...

Low-carbon birding

Author: Javier Caletrío

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing

Published: 2022

As Javier Caletrío notes at the very beginning of his introduction to this collection of essays, ‘There is a beauty in the simplicity of birdwatching’. This simplicity is something that has all too ...

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 ...

Female Heroes of Bird Conservation

Author: Rosemary Low

Publisher: Rosemary Low (self-published)

Published: 2021

It is an extremely depressing truth that women’s contributions to science are often overlooked. Historically, it was commonplace for women’s scientific work to either be ignored or stolen. Although ...

The Corncrake: an ecology of an enigma

Author: Frank Rennie

Publisher: Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath

Published: 2022

This comprehensive monograph is, perhaps surprisingly, the first to be published on this charismatic species. Extremely well referenced, while still being highly readable, Frank Rennie’s book provides ...

The Role of Birds in World War One: How Ornithology Helped to Win the Great War

Author: Nicholas Milton

Publisher: Pen & Sword History, Barnsley

Published: 2022

In a follow-up to last year’s The Role of Birds in World War Two: How Ornithology Helped to Win the War, Nicholas Milton has produced another fascinating book exploring the role played by birds in ...

Tracks & Signs of the Birds of Britain and Europe

Author: Roy Brown, John Ferguson, Michael Lawrence & David Lees

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London

Published: 2021

I suspect that the vast majority of naturalists and birdwatchers have a few feathers, skulls and general bird detritus somewhere in their possession. These can serve as a souvenir from a trip, a ...

The Bird Name Book

Author: Susan Myers

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford

Published: 2022

In style, this very engaging book sits somewhere between the terse Helm dictionary of scientific bird names (by James Jobling) and Ray Reedman’s much more discursive Lapwings, Loons and Lousy Jacks. ...
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