Birdsong

A book featuring actual bird sounds has long been a dream of many birders, and this guide perhaps goes some way to fulfilling that wish. Described by the publishers as “an amazing new kind of bird identification book with a high-quality sound module,” Birdsong features recordings of the calls and songs of 150 species found in Britain stored on a ‘press and listen’ plastic tab to the right-hand side of the species accounts, matching the length of the book itself.

Each species’ entry on the page has itemised details of the sound files incorporated into the sound module, whether song or call, and its corresponding number on the small digital screen. All passerine species in the book have a recording of their song available to listen to, though the absence of the calls of nearly all of them hobbles the book’s use as a serious identification tool. However, the recordings are easy to select, with just a touch of distortion at full volume. As is often the case with recordings made in the wild, other bird sounds can intrude but, unhelpfully, these are not explained in the text. This may lead some listeners, for example, to think that what is probably a Common Redshank call, prominent in the background of the singing Yellow Wagtail recording, is actually part of the song itself.

The accounts themselves are less to do with identification and more to do with the general biology of each species, with a basic physical description of the bird and details of its habitat and diet. Each is illustrated with a striking colour photograph of the bird in action. There are some surprising omissions among the standard British breeding and wintering species: no White-fronted Goose, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Hobby or Spotted Flycatcher, among others, are to be found anywhere in the text or recordings.

This is an impressive coffee table book rather than a genuine identification guide, despite the names involved and the publisher’s billing, and it works well as a sometimes lyrically written, general celebration of the breadth of the British avifauna.

It will certainly help familiarise the reader with many of the sounds of our commoner species, but those hoping for a comprehensive sight-and-sound reference will be left waiting, and relying on their copies of Collins in combination with online and CD recordings. However, these glossy beginnings do hint at what might be possible in book publishing in the near future, but it is likely that smartphone and tablet apps are already running ahead in combining bird illustrations and sounds.

• Birdsong: 150 British and Irish birds and
   their amazing sounds by Jonathan
   Elphick, Jan Pedersen and Lars
   Svensson (Quadrille, London, 2012).

• 256 pages, 167 colour photographs, 122 colour illustrations, 184 recordings.

• ISBN 9781849491341. Hbk £30.00. Bookshop from £23.99

Available from Birdwatch Bookshop