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 Vanishing Mew Gull: A Guide to the Bird Names of the Western Palaearctic

                Author: Ray Reedman

                Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, London

                Published: 2024

                At first glance, this book might appear to be another volume exploring the declines of bird species, as a result of Anthropocene activity. But reading beyond the title, it soon becomes clear that the eponymous gulls are disappearing in name only.

                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.

                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 four to eight.

                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 pellets and how to go about finding them.

                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 Greenwood) Emma Turner: A Life Looking at Birds.

                The Meaning of Geese

                Author: Nick Acheson

                Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK

                Published: 2023

                Migratory geese fall into that group of species that have an accompanying cultural resonance because their arrivals and departures mark the changing seasons. This resonance is particularly strong for those birdwatchers, and others, who are rooted within the landscapes touched by these birds on their long migratory journeys.

                RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife

                Author: Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

                Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London

                Published: 2023

                Gardens cumulatively make up a huge habitat in the UK and for those of us lucky enough to have a garden they have the potential to host all sorts of amazing wildlife. This book is a remarkably comprehensive guide to almost everything that might share a space with humans.

                Flight Paths: How the Mystery of Bird Migration Was Solved

                Author: Rebecca Heisman

                Publisher: Swift Press, London

                Published: 2023

                This fascinating book opens with a question: where do the birds go? People have, of course, been asking this question for centuries, and over time our knowledge has increased enormously and, indeed, is still increasing – from BTO’s own work revealing new migration routes of Cuckoos to the recent revelation that Scottish Red-necked Phalaropes winter off the Pacific coast of South America.

                Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

                Author: Christian Cooper

                Publisher: Penguin Random House, New York

                Published: 2023

                When starting Better Living Through Birding, I was not sure what to expect. Cooper is perhaps most widely known in the UK for the infamous incident in Central Park in 2020, but after reading this book I hope he will be best known in the birding community for his profound connection with birds, his eloquent prose, and his inspiring and often comical insights into the world of birding.
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