Gardening leave
THE illustrious name of Collins graces an abundance of brilliant books, but sadly the eminent authors of this one have been illserved by a rushed job with poor copy-editing and a mish-mash of content.
It seems like a UK-based book; the selection of species is British, with maps showing Britain and the adjacent Continent, and yet throughout there are references to American birds with no explanation.
A page of eggs, showing ‘relative sizes’ but all out of scale, includes that of American Robin. Topography diagrams use Eastern Bluebird, American Goldfinch and Common Grackle; nestbox illustrations show Mountain Chickadee, Tree Swallow and Eastern Bluebird. American Robin, Cedar Waxwing, American Yellow Warbler and many more are just randomly scattered throughout, with no suggestion that you might not see these in UK gardens.
Planting flowers can attract hummingbirds, suet brings in Red-breasted Nuthatches. The ‘Garden birds’ chapter starts
oddly with Archaeopteryx and a photo sequence of ‘Ringneck Doves’. The sequence of egg nestling is illustrated by Golden Eagle and Sandwich Tern.
There are grammatical and typographical errors, and even duplicated sentences. The information is always sound and many of the photographs are excellent, but we are often left wondering. If Spotted Flycatcher is the smaller of the two, what is the other one? Why are some birds Swallows and others Barn Swallows; why are two subspecies of Long-tailed Tit given species (binomial) names? The writing is a touch dull, the language often a bit ‘oldfashioned bird-book’.
Separately these are minor irritations, but so many add up to a poor result. It is nearly a good book, but it sadly misses the mark. Rob Hume