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A complete guide to Antarctic Wildlife. The Birds and Marine Mammals of the Antarctic Continent and Southern Ocean by Hadoram Shirihai, illustrated by Brett Jarrett.

As someone privileged to visit the 'White Continent' many times as both a tourist and tour leader, I was excited to get my hands on a copy of this book. First published in 2002, this is a revised second edition and so there are various things that one would want to know before purchasing a copy. How does it differ from other books on the same subject? How accurate is it and if one has the first edition, why bother buying the second? Hadoram Shirihai should be well known to most of us as someone who helped promote Israel as the migration hotspot in the Western Palaearctic. His many papers on the birds of that region filled journals and led birders to believe that they could equal the most eminent of academics when it came to increasing the wider knowledge of birds. His latest project involves years of travel in the southern oceans. As one would expect from Shirihai, it appears to be well researched and extremely thorough. It is easy on the eye, looking as wonderful as any publication about the most beautiful place on the planet deserves to be. A delightful combination of superb photographs, detailed text and good-quality plates, it has the appearance of a field guide and glossy coffee-table production all in one, but it is actually much more than this.

The basic layout has changed little between editions so the description below applies to both books. After the introduction, the first section provides very brief notes about aspects of the continent itself. These include: geology, habitats, climate, conservation, exploration and a checklist of all birds and marine mammals found in the region. These topics should only be treated as an appetiser for what the continent has to offer as each subject requires a book in itself to do them justice. The second section contains the species accounts for birds, seals and cetaceans. This makes up the bulk of the book and is probably the section that most wildlife enthusiasts will find useful. The author informs us that it is the first complete field guide to the region, which covers all birds and sea mammals north to 40°S. Some wonderful photographs complement the text and maps, while the plates are placed within the same chapter as the family or group being dealt with.

The seabirds have been dealt with first and in detail. They are separated from the endemic or indigenous birds that inhabit subantarctic islands like the Falklands, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha or those islands south of New Zealand. This covers everything from grebes and ducks to robins and bellbirds. The chapters that follow cover seals and cetaceans; introduced mammals, although present and often common, are not covered in this book.

The section that follows provides a regional description, dividing parts of Antarctica, as well as grouping clusters of subantarctic islands. This reads a little like a travel guide, covering areas or individual islands and providing some local maps. One is able to dip briefly into aspects of history, geography, habitat, climate, conservation and highlights of local wildlife. There are also paragraphs devoted to visiting arrangements. In this respect the style is similar to a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide. This is drawn from the author's personal experience as he has visited almost all places mentioned. Much of the information has been gleaned from his passage on board the regular tourist cruise ships, so is relatively up-to-date and more relevant to the majority of visitors to the region. There are also sections which make one jealous about the marvellous opportunity that the author had in reaching sites that one would be unlikely to ever visit except without special permission as part of a scientific research expedition. The final section deals with "Gateways to Antarctica". Notes about Tierra del Fuego, pelagic trips from South America, Africa, New Zealand and Australia are covered, as well as wildlife-watching opportunities from ferries or land-based locations. I feel that the author probably wanted this part of the book to act as a "where-to watch-guide"? Presumably because of space, cost restrictions or a fear of becoming dated, it lacks fine detail and is actually more akin to a very good magazine article. In this respect, it really gets the juices flowing but to be of real practical use much more research would be required by locating up-to-date trip reports before visiting.

On buying the first edition, I delved into the sections I needed to read prior to my next trip to South Georgia. The introductory sections about the continent are enlightening and a good read, but they should be treated as an appetiser to encourage one to delve further into any of the subjects raised here. In this respect it was very thorough indeed. I soon realised that it probed more deeply into the taxonomy of many species than the books I had used during my first visit to Antarctica a decade before. The birds are treated to subspecific level following the trend set by the most recent crop of bird books. Following research, the albatrosses in particular have attracted a deeper interest in (sub)species and so are now much more difficult to identify at sea! The author followed this trend with the shags making this family worthy of more attention but, more surprising to me, the seals were treated in the same detailed manner. Previous pinniped publications have been much more general, but this work brought things up to date with many potential splits not previously mooted in the wider public domain. This adds a new dimension for the wildlife watchers visiting the area. To the layman, seals were once barely given any attention. This book has sparked an interest in seals, as each archipelago seems to have its own subspecies to look for.

First impressions indicated that this book had the answer to every question I wanted to know about Antarctic wildlife, so I took it with me on a trip - here was the first drawback. It is not a lightweight publication and with current airline weight-limit restrictions one has to make a difficult choice. Books, scope, tripod or camera? Where thermals and wellies are needed, this region does not lend itself to travelling light; internal flights to join a ship in southern Argentina currently have a weight limit of 15 kg and this book is almost 10% of that allowance! However, if you are one of these all-round naturalists that would have taken bird guides to Argentina (the most common gateway to Antarctica), Falkland, seabird and cetacean guides, then maybe the combined weight would be similar?

The species accounts give the appearance that it would work well as a field guide. Most of the accounts are dealt with very well and are complemented by good quality photographs and plates by Brett Jarrett to a very high standard. My only disappointment with the first edition was with the treatment of the prions. This group of seabirds are notoriously difficult to identify at sea, even at close range. The author rightly points this out and provides a chart that lists the most useful features. In reality, I found that one can make a reasonable decision about the identity of birds in a flock, given several close sightings, but mistakes are common, even among the most experienced of seawatchers. The best way to identify these birds is to see the bill shape well. To this end, ten minutes of staring at the bills on a series of museum skins helped me far more than the eleven pages in the first edition. One photographic page comparing bills would have served readers better than the pretty shots of flying birds.

In practice, I found that it contained all the other information that I wanted from a field guide, but because of the amount of detail contained and the design of the book, it took longer to find than I needed in the field. I would have to retreat into the bar to warm up with a coffee and check what I had seen, then go back on deck to confirm my identification. It was also too heavy to take on land. As this took too much time, I found that grabbing a photo ensured that I could stay out all day and relax at night with the book placed next to a digital image on the laptop. The layout placed the species accounts and maps several pages away from a plate. For the purpose of a true field guide, maybe all the plates could have been bunched together?

The first edition brought together research work that had either not been published previously or would have taken a lot of time to track down. In this, Hadoram did a great service and must be congratulated. He added his experience accumulated during his time in the region and this admirably covered everything that the average visitor would want and more besides. His descriptions of a site and its wildlife varied only slightly from my own personal experience of repeated trips. But one visit to a site is always different from the next as the seasonal breeding cycle progresses or the weather changes. Minor quibbles aside, this book is different from any other. Both beautiful and accurate, it is crammed with everything that a visitor to the region needs to know about its wildlife. Antarctic Wildlife is a combined handbook, field guide, travel guide, where-to-watch-birds guide and coffee-table picture book. If published separately, it would fall short in all departments but together it is a mighty production that every naturalist interested in the region must have.

So to the new edition before me: When I first picked it up, it looked like a different book. Still heavy and well presented, it has an extra 32 pages, 3 new plates (great albatrosses and prions) and 300 new photographs. The latter appears to be the greatest difference and has added greatly to improve the book's usefulness as a field guide. The number of photographs available for some species has increased and those of lesser quality in the first edition have been replaced. Species accounts of many lesser-known seabirds in the first edition lacked any photograph at all but this has been admirably redressed in the second edition with the addition of instructive photographs of Atlantic, Magenta, Chatham, De Filippi's, Stejneger's, Gould's and Juan Fernández Petrels, Short-tailed and Little Shearwaters, Grey-backed, White-bellied and the rediscovered New Zealand Storm-petrels.

Previously there had been no photographs of any diving petrels, but all are now present and there are now photographs of Gray's beaked and Strap-toothed Whales, Spectacled and Burmeister's Porpoise. There are also new photographs of some endemic passerines, chiefly from the Tristan Island group, but the most instructive are the three dark Procellaria petrel photos in a close line for comparison. Most plates remain the same as they are of good quality, but new plates of the great albatrosses by John Cox bring the identification of this group bang up-to-date and greatly assist in sorting them out in the field. Thankfully, the greatest improvement has been with the prions, that tortuous cluster of identification conundrums. A new plate has made life much easier. The small notes by each bird also help, but add a slightly cluttered feel. New photographs of the prions and great albatrosses complement the text far better than previously and one can actually see the differences that the author mentions. The cetacean plates were good in the first edition, but have been bettered in the second. My only serious complaint is that the names of the whales on plate 33 have been partly covered over during computerised labelling at the publishers. On mentioning this, they have said that they will supply an erratum slip.

Despite a lot of new work being done since the initial publication, the author admits to being short of time and has revised only the text in the most important parts of the book - namely the tubenoses and particularly the great albatrosses and Tristan da Cunha buntings. Although said to be "completely redesigned", this is more to do with accommodating new pictures rather than a complete revolution. Different background colours to some tables, and some quick-access colour codes, give it a new feel, so that on first inspection it feels like a completely new book.

Ok, so you must have a copy of one edition, preferably the second, but it is clearly too cumbersome to keep in the pocket. Experienced travellers know to keep packing to a minimum, therefore, you should ensure that prior to your visit, you read it while making notes. Then ask the ship to put a copy in its library or get a gullible friend to carry one with you. It would be criminal to get such a beautiful book wet in the field, so your copy should be kept at home for reference. The new edition maintains its position as the definitive reference for the region and differs enough to make it worthwhile purchasing a new copy if you are a seabird or Antarctica addict. If you already have the first edition, and are on a tight budget or have a more general interest, it may be worth waiting for the next new seabird guide or third edition.

By taking this leap forward, Shirihai made us more aware of the gap in the market for a truly compact pocket-sized field guide to the region. Personally, I would pack a smaller field guide and leave more space for a camera or notebook to record every little detail of this special part of the world. It is such a privilege to visit Antarctica that time is too precious to waste it reading a book - no matter how wonderful. Sit and read this one thoroughly before you go, then spend every second soaking up the experience while there. On your return, look at the beautiful photographs again and again, and then pinch yourself - you have been so fortunate to see this place.