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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The Painted Stork: Exploring Ecology and Conservation in India

Author: Abdul Jamil Urfi

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, London

Published: 2024

Abdul Jamil Urfi’s latest work on his beloved Painted Storks takes us to India and provides an accessible but richly informative account of the lives of these globally Near Threatened birds. Urfi has ...

The Best Nest Contest

Author: Luke Western

Publisher: Brown Dog Books, Bath

Published: 2024

Luke Western was inspired to produce this charming book, which he wrote and illustrated, upon introducing garden birds to his baby daughter. The book itself is aimed at slightly older children – aged ...

Bird Pellets: A Complete Photographic Guide

Author: Ed Drewitt

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter

Published: 2024

Many of us will have found owls pellets while on a walk, and some may have even extracted the contents to see what has been eaten, but most will be unfamiliar with the range of species which produce ...

Maurice Bird: The Gilbert White of The Broads

Author: James Parry

Publisher: Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists’ Society

Published: 2024

The name Maurice Bird might not the most instantly recognisable, but it may be familiar to anyone who has read the author James Parry’s 2020 work (co-written with former BTO Director Dr Jeremy ...

Of the Trees and the Birds

Author: Ian Parsons

Publisher: Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath

Published: 2024

My last BTO book review focused on a book that was about the relationship between flowers and birds. Of the Trees and the Birds carries on in a similar vein. However, as the title suggests, this ...

Atlas of Feathers for Western Palearctic Birds. Volume 1: Introduction

Author: The Featherguide (ed.) & Feather Research Group

Publisher: Featherguide Publishers, Köthen

Published: 2024

As a lifelong feather collector and researcher using feather analyses for peregrine diet studies, I am always drawn to detailed feather resources. Feathers offer invaluable insights beyond diet ...

Murmur (second edition)

Author: Darren Andrews

Publisher: Self-published

Published: 2024

Books are usually filled with an abundance of words, but Murmur holds a wealth of images featuring Starling murmurations from Leighton Moss, Blackpool North Pier and Carnforth in Lancashire. The words ...

Bird Tracks: A Field Guide to British Species

Author: John Rhyder & David Wege

Publisher: The History Press, Cheltenham

Published: 2024

Quite often, a bird does not need to be seen to prove its presence. Many birders are adept at identifying birds by sound, or can confidently assign a nest or errant eggshell to species. But how many ...

Cuckoo

Author: Cynthia Chris

Publisher: Reaktion Books Ltd, London

Published: 2024

Cuckoo is the latest monograph of Reaktion Books’ Animal Series. It is short and concise and takes a slightly different approach to other recent bird monographs, focusing less on scientific studies ...
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