A guiding light for all bird fans
A glorious bluethroat with a chest of shimmering sapphire provides the perfect image to inspire thoughts of exciting adventures.
Its presence on the cover of the newly published Europe’s Birds is not merely an invitation to delve into the authoritative guide but also dream of adventures abroad in an age of curtailed travel.
This 640-page tour de force follows in the finest traditions of the WildGuides’ ‘white series’ of nature books, which have explored spiders, dragonflies, butterflies and Britain’s own birdlife through precision photography.
Focusing on the continent’s birds, it covers a geographical area stretching from the Azores to Russia’s Ural mountains and the Arctic to the Mediterranean. In all, 928 species are featured, including the vast number of rare vagrants that arrive sporadically from across the Atlantic and the wilds of Asia.
Of late, bird identification guides have become dependent on the skills of artists to detail the finer points of those crucial diagnostic features that allow species to be named in the field.
Europe’s Birds, like its British edition counterpart, uses superb photography to highlight species from different perspectives – perched, walking, in flight or swimming – along with displaying various plumages determined by sex, age and seasonal moults. To make such a comprehensive overview, the publishers have used an astonishing 4,700 images.
To take the bluethroat account as one example, this pan-European species is given full page treatment with a total of eight separate photographs depicting three different races encountered across the region. As well as males with their varied springtime and winter combinations of blue, white and red markings, there are also close up images of the dowdier female and young birds as well as an individual in flight, alongside informative text and a map.
Europe’s Birds is a must-have addition to birdwatchers’ libraries and an essential travel companion.
■■Europe’s Birds: An Identification Guide
(Princeton University
Press, £20)
It’s an invitation to dream of adventures abroad in an age of curtailed travel