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 Secret Life of Birds

Author: Moira Butterfield & Vivian Mineker

Publisher: Happy Yak, London

Published: 2022

The Secret Life of Birds is a collection of delightful stories and engaging facts, which imparts a love of birds and of nature on the next generation, inspiring them to look after the world around ...

How Birds Live Together: Colonies and Communities in the Avian World

Author: Marianne Taylor

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford

Published: 2022

How Birds Live Together offers an overarching view of the different and unexpected ways that birds nest and interact together. Many differing nesting habits are covered, from seabird cliff colonies to ...

The Extraordinary World of Birds

Author: David Lindo & Claire McElfatrick (illustrator)

Publisher: Dorling Kindersley, London

Published: 2022

An expertly written and beautifully illustrated book, that does as the title suggests - convince children that the bird world is in fact extraordinary. Covering all aspects of birds’ lives, the author ...

Feathers: An Identification Guide to the Feathers of Western European Birds

Author: Fraigneau. Cloé

Publisher: Helm, London

Published: 2021

The pattern and colouration of feathers provide valuable and often memorable clues to bird identification. Taken in isolation, however, feathers can be surprisingly hard to identify, particularly for ...

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

Author: Milton, Nicholas

Publisher: Pen & Sword History, Barnsley

Published: 2022

Stories such as War Horse have brought the history of animals in warfare into the public consciousness. Their significant contribution was formally recognised in 1943 through the creation of the PDSA ...

Short-eared Owls

Author: Bryan Benn

Publisher: Bryan Benn

Published: 2021

This book is a remarkable achievement. It describes one man’s study of Short-eared Owls over 10 years across different parts of Britain. While the main strengths of the book are those personal ...

The Wryneck: Biology, Behaviour, Conservation and Symbolism of Jynx torquilla

Author: Gerard Gorman

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter

Published: 2022

The Wryneck is one of our weirdest birds and it is hard to believe it really is a woodpecker. Gerard Gorman is a global authority on woodpeckers and combines the extensive literature with his ...

European Breeding Bird Atlas 2

Author: Verena Keller, Sergi Herrando, Petr Voříšek, Martí Franch, Marina Kipson, Pietro Milanesi, David Martí, Marc Anton, Alena Klvaňová, Mikhail V. Kalyakin, Hans-Günther Bauer & Ruud P. B. Foppen

Publisher: Lynx Edicions

Published: 2020

Considered by the judges of British Bird Book of the Year 2021 to be the most significant, influential and far-reaching title of the past 12 months, all six awarded their top marks to EBBA2. The book ...

Multimedia Identification Guide to North Atlantic Seabirds: Shearwaters, Jouanin’s & White-Chinned Petrels

Author: Bob Flood(Author), Ashley Fisher(Author) & John Gale(Illustrator)

Publisher: Scilly Pelagics

Published: 2020

Those who have seen previous titles in the Guide to North Atlantic Seabirds series will not be surprised to see this latest offering score highly in Bird Book of the Year 2021. The text, the ...
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