Midwinter birds

I have the Swedish original of this book, “Vinterfåglar”. Lars Jonsson is a productive author of nature books, chiefly on birds, illustrated by himself. Unsurprisingly, Jonsson is also a bird-watcher.

“Winter Birds” is not a field guide, but rather a kind of bird aficionado book. It illustrates and describes about 60 species typical of the Swedish winter landscape. Most of them are common European species, so the book could be of interest to British readers, too. Seabirds, shorebirds, ducks and geese have been excluded, so “Winter Birds” only covers “terrestrial” species (so to speak). The bird descriptions follow no particular format, and are to a large extent based on Jonsson's personal observations.

This is probably a good book if you're a bird-lover, but it can also work as a general coffee table book. Due to its winter theme, it works well as a Christmas gift. Five stars. But then, I give almost all Jonsson's works that rating…