For Christmas 2010, I obtained a replica of a guide known as Superior Fowl ID Information: The Western Palaearctic by Dutch birder and chook identification specialist Nils van Duivendijk. It was (nonetheless is) a compact, paperback quantity — all textual content, no pictures — overlaying each plumage of all 1,300 species and subspecies of chook recorded in Britain, Europe, North Africa and the Center East.
That’s quite a lot of birds to suit into somewhat guide.
Whereas that guide is a useful and remarkably slim quantity, the textual content is tiny, and the dearth of pictures means it’s not precisely probably the most user-friendly or aesthetically satisfying of chook ID guides. Utilitarian within the excessive, it’s helpful when you must lookup particular ID options that assist separate confusion species when difficult identification challenges current themselves. Nonetheless, it isn’t a guide that’s simple to familiarize yourself with, or that your common birder is more likely to choose up and peruse at leisure for the sheer enjoyment of it.
Quick ahead to 2025, and Van Duivendijk is again, collaborating with photographer Marc Guyt to ship the spectacular new two-volume absolutely illustrated ID Handbook of European Birds. And it’s a triumph!
Revealed by Princeton College Press, this spectacular work particulars the ID traits of 733 species of birds identified to happen in Europe. It’s break up into two volumes, with Quantity 1 overlaying non-passerines, Quantity 2 overlaying passerines, with detailed particular person species accounts highlighting key identification options, together with moults, age and gender. Crucially, this time, every species account is fantastically illustrated with a spread of very good images by Marc Guyt/AGAMI exhibiting the species in an array of various plumages and poses. There are 5,500 pictures making each volumes a visible feast. It’s a pleasure to flick via the books, and the labelled pictures make it a lot simpler to pin down the essential ID options that the earlier text-only information.
In sensible phrases, these are cumbersome volumes, and never one thing you’re ever going to hold with you within the area. They’re, nonetheless, extremely helpful in case you battle to nail identification of a chook within the area, or want that essential diagnostic characteristic to clinch identification of a uncommon species. In these pages you’ll discover particulars you’ll battle to search out in most ID guides — issues like a web page devoted to the tail-patterns of Lengthy-legged Buzzard, for instance, with descriptions and shut up pictures for instance. There are examples like that all through each volumes the place a selected characteristic is important to identification, however even the common species profiles are stuffed with detailed plumage and biometric particulars that can assist you separate tough species.
How a lot utility you get out of those books is determined by the place and the way you go birding — however no matter your strategy to birding, these books are a beautiful treasure trove of chook ID data that will be a improbable addition to any birders bookshelf. The presentation is obvious, the pictures are glorious, and it’s a pleasure to leaf via them only for the sheer pleasure of it. If you happen to encounter a difficult species within the area, gaining access to these books, alongside together with your notes or images of the chook, can be invaluable in getting an correct species ID. They’re additionally an effective way to brush up your ID information on species you don’t encounter fairly often, potential rarities earlier than spring or autumn migration, for instance, or maybe to gen up on options for key species earlier than a visit to a part of the area you haven’t visited earlier than.
General, these books are one thing I can see myself turning to many times over the approaching years, and I’d extremely suggest these volumes as a useful addition to any birder’s assortment of reference books.
ID Handbook of European Birds, by Nils van Duivendijk is printed by Princeton College Press and prices round €80-€100, relying on gives and the place you purchase. You’ll discover the two-volume set out there via all the same old on-line channels (together with Amazon.ie right here) or shouldn’t have any drawback ordering it by way of any good native bookshop.
Right here’s the ISBN for reference.
ISBN-10 : 0691253579
ISBN-13 : 978-0691253572
