The Crossley ID Guide: Britain & Ireland

Much has been written, including by myself (BTO News 305), about the Crossley approach to ID guides. As I explained in the review of the American raptor guide despite my initial misgivings, I became increasingly enamoured with this style and was very interested to see how Richard would tackle the birds of Britain and Ireland. Well, the book is here and does it work?

Firstly it should be made clear that the audience for this book is ‘beginner and intermediate’ birders and to that end the range of species covered is ideal. In fact I was pleasantly surprised at just how many scarce birds are represented – unless you are a rarity hunter, this book will have you covered, without swamping you with pages of very similar looking species that you are highly unlikely to ever find in the UK.

Perhaps the best test of this book came when I was able to take a new-to-birding group out for the day, visiting a range of habitats and species. I took along a range of guides as well, for the group to refer to and for me to point out the finer features of some of the species we had only caught glimpses of.  Of all the books (including my firm favourite, the Collins Bird Guide) it was very noticeable that every member of the group kept going back to the Crossley guide, this was their book of choice.  Other books were described as too dull, too many species, too much written detail or just too difficult to navigate around, whilst the Crossley guide often had images of birds in postures exactly as we had just seen them!

If you like this style, or are willing to give it a go (as with anything new it can take a little while to get used to) then I would highly recommend this book to help you improve your skills at identifying real birds in real situations!

Book reviewed by Su Gough