Book Reviews
Browse the archive of BTO Book Reviews, which originally appear in each issue of BTO News - the BTO membership magazine. Join BTO today to get BTO News, and new book reviews, first.

The Eagle Owl
Author: Vincenzo Penteriani & María del Mar Delgado
Publisher: T & AD Poyser, London
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781472900661
Binding: Hardback
Page Count: 384pp
Price: £60.00
For clarity, the subject here is the Eurasian Eagle-Owl Bubo bubo. The authors have studied this bird for more than 30 years in Finland, France, Spain and Italy and are exceptionally qualified to give it the Poyser-style treatment.
Their text is packed densely with information, supported by many literature citations, charts, line-drawings and photographs, and is written clearly and presented well – though often in exceptionally long paragraphs. Topics include numbers and... read more
John Marchant

Finding Birds in Eastern Bulgaria
Author: Dave Gosney
Publisher: Easybirder, Sheffield
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781907316593
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 40pp
Price: £8.50
If you’ve used a ‘Gosney guide’ in the past, then you will be familiar with the format. There is a general introduction to the area but the book is a site guide. The site is described on the left page, and there is a beautifully hand-drawn map on the right. At first glance, you think the maps make no sense at all, but when you are at the site, and read in conjunction with the text, it all makes sense! This guide was published in August, just before I went on a family holiday to Eastern... read more
Dawn Balmer

Madeira, Portugal
Author: Dirk Hilbers & Kees Woutersen
Publisher: Crossbill Guides Foundation, Arnhem
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9789491648175
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 223pp
Price: £28.95
To those familiar with Crossbill Guides, the appealing and accessible layout of the Madeira edition will come as no surprise. It is packed with information that is clearly presented, and complimented with well-chosen and often eye-catching images of the island’s scenery and wildlife. Although it is nearly 20 years since my wife and I visited Madeira on our honeymoon, this guide instantly transported me back to vertiginous levada walks, lush valleys, a seabird-filled ferry crossing to Porto... read more
Nick Moran

Wintering: a Season with Geese
Author: Stephen Rutt
Publisher: Elliott and Thompson, London
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781783964543
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 197pp
Price: £12.99
This is not a long book, but its conciseness is its strength. By the end, you have spent time with each of our native wintering geese species, but a short enough period to be left with the essence of each.
One chapter is dedicated to each of our wintering species (or two, in the case of the most recent taxonomic wrangling of the Bean Geese). Each chapter deftly combines facts with personal anecdote. I learned something new about geese in every one.
The author can see... read more
Teresa Frost

Bird Photographer of the Year: Collection 4
Author: Rob Read & Paul Sterry (editors); Foreword by Chris Packham
Publisher: William Collins, London
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9780008336196
Binding: Hardback
Page Count: 256pp
Price: £25.00
If a picture paints a thousand words, what can a brief review of a book with 248 beautiful and creatively diverse photos hope to achieve? Happily for all concerned, I am under no illusion that I should try accurately describe each one! I simply aim, using only slightly more than one word per photo that, to convince you that if you like to look at photographs of birds, this book will bring you huge enjoyment. You may, as I do, disagree with many of the selection panel’s choices of award-... read more
Mark Wilson

Birds of Thailand
Author: Uthai Treesucon & Wich'yanan Limparungpattanakij
Publisher: Lynx Edicions, Barcelona
Publication Year: 2018
ISBN: 9788416728091
Binding: Hardback
Page Count: 452pp
Price: £60.00
I visited Thailand in the 90s and the guide I took with me was the newly published Lekagul and Round, at the time the best available. Nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see, new families and new species were a daily challenge and although Lekagul and Round provided me with an aid to identification for most, for some it was rather lacking.
Fast forward thirty-five years and the new Birds of Thailand is definitely up to the job. There are over 2,000 illustrations... read more
Paul Stancliffe

Ospreys (RSPB Spotlight)
Author: Tim Mackrill
Publisher: Bloomsbury, London
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781472956033
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 128pp
Price: £12.99
RSPB’s new addition to their Spotlight series, this time on Ospreys, written by Tim Mackrill of Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, provides a science-driven, yet enjoyably written read on this stunning species of bird of prey.
The book starts by providing the reader with a comprehensive look into the biology and behaviour of Ospreys on a global scale and then continues onto the history of the species in Great Britain. The latter section of the book then looks into the conservation of... read more
Nina Schonberg

Wildlife and Wind Farms: Conflicts and solutions, Volume 3 - Offshore: Potential Effects
Author: Martin R. Perrow
Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781784271275
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 300pp
Price: £45.00
As a relative newcomer to the offshore wind industry, I found this book incredibly useful for explaining the underlying principles of the major elements of the industry, and for getting a good overview of how the sector works. Excellent diagrams, tables, figures and case studies are used throughout to support the clear explanations of, sometimes complicated, processes. The chapter layout flows well, so that each new chapter builds on knowledge from previous ones, such that there is an... read more
Ros Green

Europe's Sea Mammals: A Field Guide to the Whales, Dolphins, Porpoises and Seals (WildGuides)
Author: Robert Still, Hugh Harrop, Tim Stenton & Luis Dias
Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9780691182162
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 208pp
Price: £20.00
This is a detailed identification guide to Europe’s sea mammals, covering 41 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises and nine species of seals. This comprehensive field guide covers the eastern Atlantic from Iceland to Macaronesia, the Mediterranean, Caspian and Baltic Seas, south to Cape Verde and north to Svalbard.
The book opens with an introduction to the different groups of marine mammals covered, the pinnipeds and cetaceans, and to the region covered. It then has a brief... read more
Rachael Barber

A Sparrow's Life's as Sweet as Ours: in Praise of Birds and Seasons
Author: Carry Akroyd & John McEwen
Publisher: Bloomsbury, London
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781472967145
Binding: Hardback
Page Count: 144pp
Price: £20.00
This book is a pleasure to read and to look at. The beautiful screenprint illustrations by Carry Akroyd match perfectly John McEwen’s informative and entertaining one-page accounts. A collection of the authors’ pieces for the Bird of the Month column in The Oldie, this book covers 66 species, from passerines to seabirds, from common to rarer ones, divided between the four seasons.
This is a perfectly-balanced book where the text and illustrations are not there as a mere... read more
Daria Dadam

Birds of the West Indies
Author: Guy M. Kirwan, Anthony Levesque, Mark W. Oberle & Christopher J. Sharpe
Publisher: Lynx Edicions, Barcelona
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9788416728183
Binding: Hardback
Page Count: 400pp
Price: £49.99
Having recently been to the West Indies bird watching and bird ringing, I was disappointed at the selection of bird guides available for the region with them all appearing to be reprints of older books, which while serviceable, are definitely in need of updating. Therefore, it’s good to see a new, modern guide for the region come out, even if it’s a few weeks too late for me to make use of personally, at least for now!
Covering 29 countries and territories from the Bahamas in the... read more
Hugh Hanmer

British Birds: A Pocket Guide (WILDGuides)
Author: Rob Hume, Robert Still, Andy Swash, Hugh Harrop & David Tipling
Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) & Oxford
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9780691181677
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 272pp
Price: £9.99
Throughout my birding life I have never been a fan of photographic guides. The images in most of these early guides were of poor quality and often only featured one or two plumages per species. Back in 2016 that changed after seeing a copy of the WILDGuides' Britain's Birds: An Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland in the accommodation I was renting on Shetland. This book was packed with high-quality photos by various photographers, including Hugh Harrop and David... read more
Scott Mayson

Where to Watch Birds in France
Author: Jean-Yves Barnagaud, Nidal Issa & Sébastien Dalloyau
Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781784271541
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 336pp
Price: £25.00
Having been birding in France a number of times I was intrigued to read this new guide to see how well it stands up to the sort of planning I like to make. As with many guides, this book divides up the country with clear recommendations for each region and lists which species to look out for. Following a detailed guide to the book itself, the descriptions are well set out with nice suggestions for hot spots to visit wherever in the country you might be, how long you might want to spend there... read more
Katharine Bowgen

Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification
Author: Pete Dunne & Kevin T Karlson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Year: 2018
ISBN: 9780691156941
Binding: Softback
Page Count: 208pp
Price: £20.00
This book aims to look at shape and structure, before dwelling on finer plumage characteristics, an approach you might already use on raptors. It starts ‘Gulls? No waaaayyeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’, which rather sets the tone for the rest of the book; chatty, laid back and informal.
Author Pete Dunne realised he was better able to identify a Lesser Black-backed Gull at 200 yards than at 20 feet. Although, being a book covering the gulls of North America, I can relate to... read more
Sarah Harris

Listening in the Field: Recording and the Science of Birdsong
Author: Joeri Bruyninckx
Publisher: MIT Press, Cambridge (MA) & London
Publication Year: 2018
ISBN: 9780262037624
Binding: Hardback
Page Count: 248pp
Price: £27.00
Bird song and calls have caught people’s attention and captured our imagination for millennia. As scientific study emerged and advanced, listening to, recording and analysing bird vocalisations became a key aspect of ornithology.
Bruyninckx documents the history of these developments in absorbing detail, starting with case studies of some of the early pioneers of bird sound recording in the field and going on to consider how we interact with and interpret bird sounds. The author... read more
Nick Moran
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