A classical KGB front operation

I've seen an earlier version of this sinister volume, titled “A field guide to the birds of the USSR”. The main author, V F Flint, is introduced as Chief of the Faunal Section at the Central Laboratory for Nature Conservation of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. Translator Natalia Bourso-Leland is a consultant for the Massachusetts Audubon Society (Massachusetts is the most liberal state of the Union) and a coordinator of the American Soviet Cultural Exchange. In this “new” edition, the USSR has morphed seamlessly into “Russia and adjacent territories”, as if the independent nation-states of, say, Estonia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were simply “territories” of The One Mighty. The whole thing practically smells KGB…

:D

OK, seriously. This is actually a standard field guide of the old fashioned variety, where the species presentations and color plates aren't on facing pages, but form two distinct parts of the book, making it hard to actually use in the field. Presentations include sections on Field Marks, Habits, Range and Distribution, and Similar Species. Most of the birds shown are of the boring northern Eurasia variety. If you own a copy of Heinzel, Fitter and Parslow's old Über-guide to European birds (including the European part of the USSR), you probably have most of these birds already…and on facing pages, to boot!

A curious detail is that the copy I leafed through in a Swedish library has been “improved” by a somewhat over-enthusiastic bird-watcher, who added the Swedish names of each bird in his own hand writing after each entry. The guy did the same with “Birds of southern South America and Antarctica”, and perhaps a few more, which can be interpreted in all kinds of ways, none mentioned here.

Perhaps he's counter-intelligence?