Probably the best field guide to European birds...if you know how to use it

Lars Svensson's field guide to European birds exist in two versions, both of which have been printed in many different editions.

The small paperback version is intended for use in the field, but unfortunately the illustrations are so small, that using it becomes difficult. The other version of Svensson's book is a large, almost gigantic, coffee table book. It contains the same illustrations as the paperback, but in much larger format.

The larger version of Svensson's book is probably the best field guide to European birds available at the present time. Ironically, it's almost impossible to actually use in the field, since it's too large and too heavy! If you use a minivan on your fieldtrips, I guess you could store the book in it. Otherwise, the best guide to the birds of Europe would unfortunately have to stay at home (or at the hotel room). I suspect Svensson's book is mostly used by elite bird watchers as a reference volume. For instance, it could be used to identify birds from photos taken in the field. Incidentally, Svensson and his co-authors are elite bird watchers themselves. They didn't publish the book until they had personally observed almost all the species described in it! Or so they say.

Svensson covers almost the same area as the classical "twitcher" field guide "Birds of Britan and Europe" by Heinzel, Fitter and Parslow: Europe including the European part of Russia, North Africa, the Caucasus, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Canary Islands and Madeira. For some reason, the book excludes the Azores, which are usually covered by European field guides. 722 species are described, and most of them are illustrated as well. The text and the illustrations are on facing pages, and range maps are also included. The illustrations (all in color) are somewhat better than the ones in Heinzel/Fitter/Parslow, but worse than the artistic miracles in Jonsson's field guide "Birds of Europe". But then, it's hard to beat Jonsson!

What makes Svensson's book so useful is that it illustrates virtually every possible variety of each species: subspecies, juveniles, first winter plumage, second winter plumage, summer plumage, etc. Often, these are illustrated in the same size, making it easy to compare the different plumages of each bird. Sometimes, similar species are illustrated in smaller format on the same page, for easy comparison. The captions point out distinct traits of each bird, making identification easier. There are also introductory sections to the most difficult bird groups, such as shorebirds, containing tips for both beginners and advanced bird-watchers. Overall, the book is nicely edited, much better than Jonsson's field guide. The only negative is that the book doesn't illustrate as many vagrants as Heinzel's, Fitter's and Parslow's book. I mean, vagrants are half the fun of bird books, right?

:-)

Note that this is a review of the large format, coffee table version. I only skimmed the paperback version, but it seems to be essentially the same book, but with all the wonderful illustrations diminished to miniscule size.

Personally, I'm one of those *really* bad bird watchers, whose idea of twitching is looking at the honkers down at the local duck pond, but if I would take up the craft for real, I would probably invest in a high-resolution camera, and identify all unknown birds back at home base using Svensson's big one.

Recommended.

PS. For some reason, Amazon markets the paperback version of this book under the faulty designation "Birds of Europe by Killian Mullarney".