My husband has always had a strong interest in birds and we are very keen to attract them to the garden. We also like, when possible to visit various nature reserves in the UK and also sometimes abroad. The Collins Bird Guide has always been an essential to take with us on these trips, or indeed to have to hand when something a little bit different visits the garden.
I think this is an incredibly useful book and I can't dispute its front cover claim that it is 'the most complete field guide to the birds of Britain and Europe. The book is organised in the way that most bird watchers would expect starting with divers and ending with buntings. This apparently is known as the taxonomic order!
The book starts with a very useful introduction which pretty much explains how you can get the most out of using the book. It helps you understand about the status keys,the distribution maps, a glossary of all the different terms and a small bit on how birds are identified. As a bit of a novice birdwatcher, I found all of this very helpful.
As I said earlier, there is an order to how all the birds are organised within this book, but there is also an index at the back to take you directly to a specific bird. Each section starts with a general overview of the species describing the basic traits. The book then goes through all of the birds that belong to that species and can be found in Britain and Europe. For each bird you are told a little about where it breeds, before more elaboration about its identification and its voice. I find the way that the birds are described are thankfully not too technical and in fact most of the descriptions are very accessible and somewhat entertaining. There are also distribution maps for the majority of birds. These are very useful, particularly if you are having trouble working out what a bird might be. If you are torn by two choices, it can often be decided by looking at the distribution map. This often makes you realise that it can't possibly be the bird you were thinking of as it's nowhere near where you are at a particular time of year!
The illustrations in this book are very very good. You always get a side on view of every bird, but when appropriate, you get pictures for different times of year, for juveniles and when in flight. It seems that the artists have covered every angle to help you identify the birds. They also label specific parts of some birds which draws your attention to the particular features which help to distinguish them.
This has proved a very useful book for us both in the UK and abroad. We have taken our copy to many places and it's well worn and a bit mud splattered as well. My one complaint is that it is quite a heavy bulky book which is unlikely to fit in most pockets. As you generally need two hands to use binoculars it's a bit of a pain thinking how to carry it. That's just a small gripe though!
I think that this book is suitable for people who have at least a little knowledge about birds.Probably, an absolute beginner might want to start with something which just covers the UK, because there are sometimes too many birds to plough through to find the right one. I also don't think that it's suitable for children and it's probably much better to get them something which is aimed at children.
At the moment you can get a paperback copy of the Collins Bird Guide for only £12.99 on Amzon which I think is pretty good value for such an informative book.
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