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…

Resident evil

Vivat!

As a child, I was very upset when first learning about cuckoos and their brood parasitism. I considered cuckoos to be EVIL. Later, I was relieved to hear that all cuckoos aren't parasitic. At least the Cuculiformes as a whole weren't TAINTED. Naturally, I cheered inwardly when I read that Great Reed Warblers sometimes attack cuckoos, force them under water, and make them DROWN. Can anyone please make a toy of a Great Reed Warbler? Or a poster of the same songbird heroically battling Resident Evil?

A blackbird from darkest Morrocco

I know, it´s the wrong subspecies 

"Birds of Africa" is a seven-volume reference work covering all species of birds found in Africa, both North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. This is the fifth volume, edited by Emil K. Urban, Hilary Fry and Stuart Keith with illustrations by Martin Woodcock and Ian Willis. And let's not forget Claude Chappuis, who is responsible for the acoustic references.

This volume covers thrushes, Old World warblers, Old World flycatchers, monarch flycatchers, wattle-eyes and puffback flycatchers. The book is a typical reference work, probably unsuitable for occasional bird-watchers or the general reader, but a "must have" for every research library and more advanced ornithologist. At least if his way of advancement goes through Africa!

The species presentations include sections on range and status, description, field characters, voice, general habitat, food and breeding habits. The color plates are good but somewhat confusedly edited. The maps in the introductory section show the best (?) haunts in darkest Africa, including the Bamingui-Bangoran National Park, the Mbaéré-Bodingué-Nyota Forest and the Warsangeli Escarpment. I must remember those, although something tells me they can't be reached by metro...

The book also contains its fair share of surprises. Thus, it turns out that the European Blackbird can be found in Morocco! It's supposed to be a special subspecies, "Turdus merula mauritanicus", but I honestly can't tell the difference with the blackbirds hopping around in my very European backyard. The Fieldfare, Redwing and Ring Ouzel also make guest appearances in this work, since they can all be found in Northern Africa during their annual migrations.

Personally, I prefer HBW to any other reference work on birds, but then, I mostly look at the pictures! As already indicated, I'm sure the fifth volume of "Birds of Africa" also fills a niche. 

Commercial gnatcatchers?

This is volume 11 of HBW or "Handbook of the Birds of the World", a 16-volume encyclopedia and scientific reference work covering all (!) species of birds. The entire series took 19 years to publish, so the editors at Lynx Edicions must have been very satisfied indeed when the last volume hit the stores late last year.

The eleventh volume was published in 2006. It covers a number of passerine families, most notably the Old World Warblers. Indeed, about half of this grand volume deals with the warblers. The rest of the book covers Old World Fly-catchers, Batises and Wattle-Eyes, Kinglets and Firecrests, Fantails, Cisticolas and allies, Monarch Fly-catchers, and Gnatcatchers. I readily admit that I never heard of many of these families before. Gnatcatchers? As opposed to Fly-catchers, presumably...

As usual, each family is introduced with an extensive chapter on systematics, morphology, habitat, habits, relationship with man and conservation status. Species presentations follow. All species are illustrated on the color plates. In addition, the book also contains real color photographs of many of the birds mentioned in the text. It's the photos that mark HBW out from normal reference works of this kind, which are all text and very little pictures. I think the photos are the main reason why Lynx Edicions are promoting the HBW on the commercial market, despite the heavy, non-popularized character of the text.

Obviously, HBW volume 11 is worth five stars.