Birds of a frozen lake

A review of "MacMillan Field Guide to Bird Identification" 

This is a kind of “step two field guide” intended for more advanced bird-watchers. It deals with so-called confusion species and explains at some length how to tell them apart from each other. Unsurprisingly, a large portion of the book deals with shorebirds and gulls, often juveniles or in winter plumage. Trust me, different species of gulls are almost impossible to tell apart in winter, I mean they are *all* white as snow! You hardly see them at all. Warblers form another huge section of the book (think “small songbirds, all brown and all invisible among the reeds”). Another classic is the Whooper Swan, which is strikingly similar to the Bewick's Swan. I have no idea whether this advanced guide really helps, but if you are obsessed with finding out exactly what gull just attacked you at that frozen lake midwinter, I suppose you might want to invest in your own copy…