European Bird Guide
At just 192 pages, this slim paperback is highly portable. Behind a bright, attractive cover lies a familiar format, comprising a brief section introducing birdwatching and the basics of bird topography. A further section describes the key characters of each bird family, accompanied by tiny thumbnail paintings of representative species.
The core of the book follows the tried and tested formula of ‘text and facing plate’. The texts are accompanied by breeding range maps, while the plates adopt the traditional ‘pointer’ to key features. A final section describes the typical bird sounds of a selection of British and European habitats.
The guide covers Europe rather than the wider Western Palearctic and therefore excludes many species found in the Middle East, North Africa and the Atlantic islands. It does, however, take account of recent taxonomic changes, including, for example, Yellow-legged Gull, Caspian Gull, Common Redpoll and Iberian Chiffchaff.
Although the book's title is ‘European Bird Guide’, its subtitle refers to ‘Britain and Europe’. Within the species texts this slight shift of emphasis becomes apparent. Confusingly, the ‘Distribution’ section (better termed ‘Status and Distribution’) refers exclusively to Britain while ‘Habitat’ deals with Europe. This latter section, however, consistently muddles habitat preference and distribution. For example, the habitat of Yellow-browed Warbler is described as ‘Siberia’.
Some confusion is also evident in the choice of species. It includes some (White’s Thrush and Sykes’s Warbler) that are no more than vagrants, whereas a number of other far more regular species (particularly in Britain), such as Green-winged Teal and Dusky and Radde’s Warblers, are relegated to an appendix with no illustrations. Strangely, Wilson’s Phalarope, Common Waxbill and Red Avadavat are included in the main section, although they are not illustrated.
The species texts are extremely short but generally successful attempts to summarise key identification features, at least of easy-to-identify species. There is, however, little room for any treatment of more subtle criteria, racial variation or, sometimes, even age and sex-related plumage variation. While this degree of compression may save space and enable a quick skim in the field, it greatly over-simplifies more complex identification issues. For example, the description of Caspian Gull provides little chance of correctly identifying the species.
The range maps are tiny. Furthermore, they only map breeding ranges and therefore give no visual clue as to where species may occur on migration or in winter. The inclusion of maps is also somewhat arbitrary. Corsican Nuthatch merits a map yet Scottish Crossbill, with a similarly restricted range, does not.
The success of any field guide will, however, ultimately be judged by its plates. Paschalis Dougalis is a talented artist and has done, for the most part, a solid job. The paintings are generally both accurate and attractive, but somewhat variable. Particularly delightful are the Sylvia warblers, flycatchers, chats and wheatears. Less successful are the gulls, terns, skuas and waders, which are more ‘wooden’. The layout is, however, cramped and the reproduction has deprived the paintings of any real ‘crispness’.
To test the publisher’s claims of the guide’s ‘authority’, I looked in detail at two species groups: Brent Geese and redpolls. Unfortunately, this was not reassuring. The illustration of Black Brant does not resemble this form, showing neither its extensive white flanks nor its brown-toned body. In the text, Pale-bellied Brent is described simply as breeding in Greenland with no mention of the Spitsbergen population. As for Arctic Redpoll, we are told that it is identified by its ‘unstreaked underwing coverts’. This should, of course, read ‘undertail coverts’, but in any case it is not a correct statement.
The guide is clearly aimed at beginners and the less experienced. More seasoned birders will find nothing new here. In Europe, the focus on British status and distribution will seem strange, while for use in this country the inclusion of so many species, some not even on the British list, takes up a lot of space which could have been used to provide more comprehensive treatments. Against the benchmark set by the magnificent Collins Bird Guide, therefore, this new guide falls short on most fronts. The texts are too brief to handle any subtlety or complexity, the maps are too small and incomplete to be useful, and the plates are not of the highest standards of artistry and accuracy we now come to expect. In short, the guide is far less informative and authoritative than the market leader. In mitigation, it offers benefits of a more up-to-date taxonomy, portability and a cheaper price.
Tech spec
- European Bird Guide by Peter H Barthel and Paschalis Dougalis (New Holland Publishers, London, 2008)
- 192 pages, 70 colour plates.
- ISBN 9781847731104. Pbk, £10.99
First published in Birdwatch 194:58 (August 2008)
