Antarctic Wildlife

The moment you pick up this book it feels good. The size is right and it’s not too heavy, yet it is crammed with advice – exactly what the overseas traveller wants. With years of experience on cruise ships to Antarctica, James Lowen has put himself in the position of a first-time visitor and worked out exactly what he or she will need.

Most visitors to Antarctica take a trip from Ushuaia in Argentina down the Beagle Channel and across the Drake Passage to explore the Antarctic Peninsula. This is precisely the area the book covers, and in doing so it is structured unlike any others, breaking up the trip into these three segments. For those who simply want an overview, the initial introductory section covers the environment, conservation and tourism, as well as the main groups of wildlife likely to be seen – mammals, birds and plants – and there then is an outline of the three areas visited, with a useful checklist of species for each. No underwater wildlife, apart from sea mammals, is included in the guide as few see much of it.

The bulk of the book comprises the three sections of species accounts, which are colour coded for quick recognition. Each account features basic identification information, a note on where to look, and a nugget of interesting information where appropriate. Opposite the texts, which cover from one

to four species, are the plates. I am not usually a fan of photographic guides, but these are exceedingly well-chosen images, many of which have either been digitally extracted and cleverly formed into montages, or are split

into several photo strips. Wherever possible, images of seabirds in flight include views of upperparts and underparts – readers should note, though, that this guide will not solve all of your albatross or prion ID issues, just most of them.

There are lots of nice touches in the book: many of the cetacean species pages have a strip of silhouettes at the bottom which show the various stages of a breaching to help with identification; one page of seabirds gives an idea of sizes from Wandering Albatross to Wilson’s Storm-petrel; and the penguin species are shown lined up to scale. One small criticism, though, is that there is no information for those visitors who go on to South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, which is the best of all possible cruises.

Otherwise, if all that isn’t enough reason to purchase the book, then consider that it is raising funds for BirdLife International’s Save the Albatross campaign. Buy it and then start saving for your trip!

Tech spec

• Antarctic Wildlife: a Visitor’s Guide to the Wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula, Drake Passage and Beagle Channel by James Lowen (WildGuides, Maidenhead, 2011).

• Approximately 350 photos, 35 illustrations and two maps.

• ISBN 9781903657324. Pbk, £17.95.

Available from Birdwatch bookshop

First published in Birdwatch  229:46 (July 2011)