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Are we missing Lesser Kestrels?

31/8/2016

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It sometimes seems like female/juvenile Lesser Kestrels and Common Kestrels were "created"* with no other purpose than test our identification skills but at least adult males are, on a decent view, not too difficult to distinguish from one another. What fewer people seem to be aware of is the tricky identification pitfall presented by first summer males.
* Actually that may not be too far from the truth as some scientists believe that Lesser Kestrel, which isn't as close a relation of Common Kestrel as its appearance suggests, has evolved to mimic Common Kestrel and even more so Rock Kestrel, an African species found where Lessers winter, which are both larger and more aggressive thus affording the smaller species' some measure of protection! 

​After watching adult males for a while it becomes distinctly less difficult to pick them out thanks to their plain bluish-grey hoods, lack of dark moustache, whitish underwings and particularly their grey upper wing panel. Sometimes, though, these features can prove to be 'false friends' since they lull you into a false sense of security and mean you could be missing first summer males. These birds not only fail to show most of the clear cut identification features of an adult male but, worse, can mimic to some degree the features associated with a male Common Kestrel. 
PictureIllustration 1 : 1st summer, note the tail & head pattern, lack of grey wing panel and lack of grey wing panel,
Fortunately, though, most young males (of both species) have a distinctive tail which should alert you to the fact that you're dealing with a potentially difficult identification. Whilst all juveniles start off with a barred brown and black tail (like a female) by the time the young males return in the spring, the central feathers are grey and black tipped (like an adult's) and the outer feathers a very worn and bleached brown and black. This feature should warn you that you're looking at a tricky first summer birds (although later in the season they may have a fully adult tail). The problem is that such birds entirely lack an adult male's tell-tale grey band on the upperwing so that if you're relying on this feature you can be misled. If you then check the bird's identity by looking for the male's plain bluish-grey “clean shaven' head then you can still be thrown. Males at this age not only may have their powder blue-grey heads sullied with brown giving them more the colour of Common at a distance. Not only that but they can also show a Common's dark moustache and paler cheeks! This is compounded by their tending to have more dark makings on the chest and underwing than adult males. Put all of these together and it's easy to see why, at a glance, you might identify one as a Common Kestrel. 

PictureFig 1: Common Kestrel (left), Lesser kestrel (right)

​So how can you tell them apart?
Happily, when perched, first summer has the Lesser's typical dumpier, more round headed shape with wings that approach the tip of the tail (see Fig 1).  At times this can look obvious but at other times it's not so easy to detect particularly if you're unfamiliar with the species. Then there's also the distinct wing formulae with Lesser having a far longer outermost primary (P10) although that's best seen in photos of flying birds (see Fig 2)  

PictureFig 2: Note that in Lesser P10 is much longer than P7 whilst in Common they're the same length
​​Leaving aside structure, then the best indicator is that the birds have at least moulted their back (i.e. mantle) which are plain and unmarked. Also although streaked below the markings are still fewer than on a Common Kestrels and more round in shape whist the ground colour tends to be warmer. Similarly the underwing, although more marked than most adult males, are still noticeably paler and whitish (particularly the 'hand').Other features to look for on perched birds are the famous white claws and Lesser's more dumpy appearance and wings that reach further towards the tail tip. In photo of flying birds, of course, the distinctive difference in wing formulae can be seen. 

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Illustration 3 : First summer male Lesser Kestrel - note the streaked nape, darkish moustache, pale cheeks and crown sullied with brown which make this bird resemble Common Kestrel
So if we may be missing the odd first summer male, how else are we missing them? Well, many people still fail to appreciate that some Lesser Kestrels don't migrate but remain in Spain during the winter months. If you're not looking for something, they're easier to miss! As a general rule most Lesser Kestrels leave southern Spain in August - September (with a peak at the end of the latter month) with a few lingering into October. Although in spring most appear to arrive in the second half of March, in Alcala de Los Gazules I've had evening flocks 60-70 or more by mid-February and friends report influxes as early as January. Although the picture is muddied by late departures and early arrivals, some birds don't seem to leave at all. Exactly how many remain remains a matter of debate. 
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The Spanish winter bird atlas shows concentrations of wintering birds along the Guadalquivir particularly in its lower reaches, east of Seville and around Cordoba plus several other areas. Both my own experience and that reported in the atlas suggests that birds are generally seen when they return every night to a traditional colony site or when they leave every morning. The atlas also quotes a study (Negro, Riva & Bustamante: Patterns of winter distribution and abundance of Lesser Kestrels in Spain. Journal of Raptor Research, 1991: 25: 30-35) that discovered that wintering birds were found in 66% of the colonies checked and that the authors concluded that in Andalucia 19% of the species is sedentary, a surprisingly high figure. Interestingly, although the atlas doesn't show Alcala de los Gazules as a wintering site in my limited experience a few birds do actually remain around the village in winter albeit no more than a than a dozen or so. Most of the birds I've seen have been adult males but in rather smaller numbers than reported by Negro et al., being between 5-10% of the numbers I see in the breeding season. However, from this I suspect that wintering birds are a little more widespread than the atlas shows. Even if the estimate that 19% stay is a little high, my much lower 'guestimate'  of 5 - 10% suggests that well over 1,000 birds might be there to be found!

So
if you're in Andalucia in winter remember that Lesser Kestrels return earlier than you might think and don't give up on seeing Lesser Kestrel even in mid-winter. So double check those kestrels you see out hunting in November-January and try to visit a lowland village with a thriving summer population just before dusk.

This is a much shortened and amended version of a short article on Lesser Kestrels due to be published in the magazine of the Andalucian Bird Society's quarterly magazine in autumn 2016 (see - www.andaluciabirdsociety.org/) 




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Cañada de Marchantes - a cultural and historical diversion

14/8/2016

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Look at any large scale map of Spain and you soon find that cañadas, which can be best be translated as droveways, crisscross the country.  Some have been converted into 'proper' tarmacked roads, others remain broad tracks flanked by wide grassy margins and others have degenerated into narrow, sometimes virtually non-existent, footpaths. Their status as rights of way is often disputed or questionable (although I understand that Cañadas Real - Royal droveways - have greater legal protection). As in the UK such ancient rights of way are often under threat from rapacious landowners. Frequently they're named after the places they connect, the topography of the area or the trade using them.  Cañada de Marchantes not only runs through an excellent area for birds to the Lagunas de Chiclana but also for affords superb views across this corner of Andalucia.  So wide and open is the view that no single photograph can quite do it justice. 
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That the views here have a special place in local sentiments is clear by the name given to the mirador along the route that enjoys the most spectacular view, “Punto Mágico”. It's no coincidence that when Chiclana de la Frontera celebrated the 700th anniversary of its founding, this relatively isolated spot was chosen to memorialise the fact. 

The inscription on the modest plinth reads, in translation, as follows:
Magic Point - Miralamar. 
Our Romantics and seafaring forebears rightly called this place Miralamar (Sea View). The sea, the bay (of Cadiz), Chiclana and its countryside, a whole wide horizon, is viewed from this hill where 
Paquiro had his vines and the droveway takes us to the lagoons of Jeli and Montellano and Cortijo del Ingles. Chiclana de la Frontera VII centenary 1303 – 2003
​
PicturePaquiro looking every inch the 70's rock star! (Photo - Wikipedia)
”Paquiro” was the nickname of Francisco Montes Reina (1805 – 1851) who was born and raised in Chiclana de la Frontera (where there’s a museum in his memory). Paquiro is one of the most famous names in bullfighting history being responsible for the codification of its rules and the formalisation of the now traditional "Traje de Luz" (the toreador's colourful suit). The cap that bullfighters wear - the montera - is named in his honour (from his family name Montes). He remains revered in bullfighting circles and, whatever one may think about bullfighting, a local hero to many.  As suggested by the inscription he owned vineyards in this area. 

I had lazily assumed that 'Cañada de Marchantes' meant 'Droveway of the Merchants' given the proximity of a great port. However, on checking I found that, surprisingly, it actually means "Droveway of the Marchers".  Marching seems the antithesis of cattle droving where the point was to get cattle to market in a good condition not as quickly as possible.  Since only soldiers generally march was there a military connection of some sort?  I have no evidence to prove the fact but I suspect that the answer may lie in the Peninsular War (1808 - 1814). At that time a French Napoleonic army besieged the Anglo-Spanish forces that held Cadiz. In a move to break the siege Anglo-Spanish forces were landed near Algeciras and then moved north, taking Vejer de la Frontera in the process, before meeting the French in a bloody battle just south of Sancti Petri.  French forces based in Chiclana under Leval and Ruffin took part in this campaign and, looking at the map of the conflict, it's quite possible that they took this cañada to reach the battle thus providing a military context for the name. This is, of course, a speculation but not I think an entirely unreasonable one. 
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The Campaign of Barrosa - the ornithologically obsessed will note the size of the Laguna de La Janda in the inset map!
The name of the farm - Cortijo del Ingles (mentioned on the inscription may seem surprising given that the historical animosity between Spain and England found its apogee in the sacking of nearby Cadiz (by Sir Francis Drake). A farm named after the old enemy overlooking the site of their most notorious attack is superficially unexpected.  Yet by bringing back 2,900 barrels of "liberated" sack (as sherry was then called) Drake unintentionally gave the English a taste for Spanish wines. This was summed up by Shakespeare when he gave his most infamous, drunkard, Falstaff the line "If I had a thousand sons the first humane principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack".  In the 19th century this taste was further encouraged by British involvement, as noted above, in the Peninsular War and subsequently strong British involvement in the production of sherry (as witnessed by sherry trade houses like Osborne, Williams and Humbert). Although outside the famous "Sherry Triangle" (formed by Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María), Chiclana is within the area that produces grapes to make the drink.  Hence it's not really surprising to find an "English farm" here after all. 
​Birds apart, one of the great joys of birdwatching is that it takes you to places that most tourists never discover and introduces you to odd snippets of culture, tradition and history to which most visitors remain oblivious.
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Lagunas de la Lantejuela - development & 'eco-tourism'

12/8/2016

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​What's in a name?  Well, quite a lot actually!  Manuel Palomero, who kindly alerted me the plans for these nine lagunas by sharing an article (see below) on Facebook, reminds me that the tag 'Lagunas de Lantejuela' is something of a misnomer.  Despite the 'official name' being 'Complejo Endorreico de Lantejuela' and the one that appears in various documents and on maps, only one of the lagunas (Gobierno) is actually within the municipality of Lantejuela! Whilst it's true that all of the lagunas are strung out to the east of that village, none of the remaining eight lagunas are within that municipality; six are part of Osuna, one in Ecija and one in El Rubio. Logically, they could equally well (or even better) be called the 'Lagunas de Osuna' and some refer to the area as part of the 'Osuna Triangle'.  However, since this is how they are widely known I'll refer to them by their usual title whilst flagging up this administrative complication (a more 'neutral' name for the area would be welcome!).  It obviously makes sense to treat the area as one unit, so this split responsibility must complicate things and that's even before you consider competing local interests (military, transport, farming, hydrology, etc). So it's a delicate waters for a foreigner, and one with lousy Spanish at that, to dip his toe  and, to mix metaphors, I apologise in advance for treading on anyone else's!  
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Map of the Lantejuela area
'According to a recently published article* a hundred tourists visit the Lagunas de Lantejuela a month which may seem a lot until you realise that it's only just over three a day. Moves to improve the facilities have been in progress for some time although the evidence on the ground, beyond a few notice boards, is somewhat thin. According to Juan Lora, the Mayor of Lantejuela, the Ministry of Environment is working on a draft plan involving a 'six-year action plan' involving research, conservation and tourism which is to be presented on 7th September.  It is certainly very encouraging that this niche market has been recognised and that the authorities are looking at how birdwatchers and others can be encouraged to visit this much neglected area.  All those involved in this project deserve commendation and praise.                                     *See http://www.andaluciacentro.com/sevilla/osuna/lantejuela/6355/la-junta-trabaja-contra-reloj-para-tener-el-proyecto-de-la-reserva-de-lantejuela-el-7-de-septiembre) 
PictureThe entrance to Laguna del Gobierno - when the gates in the foreground are open you can access the flat roof of building on the left which gives good views
 One proposal is the expand the observatory (presumably at Laguna del Gobierno) and constructing more hides at the edge of lagoons (although it's not clear which ones). There are also plans to improve access (on foot and by cycle) to the restored Laguna de Ruiz Sánchez. This huge shallow lagoon is one of the largest in Andalucia (vying with Laguna de Tollos in Cadiz province for the second place after Laguna de Fuente de Piedra).  It has the potential, if fully realised, to be one of the top birding destinations in the area. 

PictureA roadside hide at Laguna del Gobierno around which you have to peer - I've never seen it open!
As already noted this emphasis on 'eco-tourism' is to be welcomed but, whilst this is undoubtedly good news, previous experience inclines me to caution. Despite the best intentions, all too often, the reality has been unmanned and underused facilities which have often been designed with a bureaucrat's understanding of the needs of birding tourists. Now I rather doubt anyone with the slightest influence in this matter will ever look at this blog but in case they do so here are a few suggestions and comments (although as I've not been there for over 18 months some issues may now have been tackled). ​

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Laguna del Gobierno from the road
a) Laguna del Gobierno is particularly important as, being fed by a water plant, it's one of the few lakes in the area that never dries up. Hence it's already a great site and one with paths and hides but it is seemingly always locked up like Fort Knox without any suggestions or information about how a visiting eco-tourist can actually visit the place. At the moment visitors are obliged to peer round the permanently locked hide through the roadside bushes and across the reeds to see the birds. If they're lucky and there's access to the flat roof of a large building (the 'observatory'?) just inside the outer gates. This gives a good, if distant, view across the reserve but this can be more frustrating than helpful since it allows the would-be visitor to more fully understand what it is they're missing!. It seems that the focus here is more on educating local children which, of course is great, but there's little point in promoting birdwatching/eco-tourism if you keep reserves locked up, fail to advertise when they're open or allow entry only for pre-booked groups. ​
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Ornithological route
b) Ornithological Route – it wasn't clear to me if this is supposed to be walked or driven but when I drove it I found it poorly signposted and sections in poor repair. A pity as it's a nice route.
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Laguna de Ballestera from the track along its southern edge
c) Laguna de Ballestera – the track leading to the back of the reserve is terrific and much appreciated. Just what is needed. Good to find the signposting off the nearby road has been improved although when I visited the few ancient signs telling visitors it was a "military zone" were a little worrying! A hide here like the one at Campillos (see below) would be wonderful. Signs from here to Laguna de Pedro Lopez could be better as after a few hundred metres you reach a T-junction with no indication which way to go.  Still this is a great start and something that can be developed with advantage.
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Laguna de la Turquillas - nowhere to pull of safely or legally ...
d) Laguna de la Turquillas – please provide somewhere safe off road to park! A path or boardwalk and a raised hide  would be good too. Some sources seem to suggest there's a path from here to Lagunas de Calderon – if so it needs way marking.
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Laguna de Calderon Grande
PictureGates locked with the welcome "Zonar Militar - Prohibido el Passo"
e) Lagunas de Calderon – it's very frustrating to see a large car park, benches and even a path here all securely locked up behind a large white gate. It's very worrying when, having parked inside the gates on seeing them open, you discover as you leave that the gate has a daunting sign reading 'Zona Militar -Prohibido el Passo'!  There's no information board either which could indicate whether the track and car park are ever open to the public or where you can make enquires. This is a shame as with relatively little, inexpensive work this could site could be transformed. Once again it's a site that begs for the "Campillos treatment". Currently it's impossible to safely park off the main road so it would be wonderful if a permanently open viewpoint could be established affording views across both lakes. ​

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The tantalising prospect of Laguna de Ruiz Sánchez
f) Laguna de Ruiz Sánchez – huge credit is due to those involved for restoring this laguna. Whenever I've passed by that way it's been alive with birds. It's very good to hear that a 17 km greenway is planned here. Visiting birdwatchers would also appreciate a few signs and somewhere to park and, of course, some of those hides! ​
PictureLaguna Dulce Campillos, Malaga
g) Hides are great but they are expensive and you can build more screens for the same price – birders are hardy types and can cope with a little rain, besides if you provide car parks they can shelter in their cars! Also if man power is a problem and they have to be locked, then they're not much use. Birdwatchers don't stick to office hours! In contrast, screens are always open to visitors. A  tremendous example of a well screened hide which is open to the can be found at Laguna Dulce Campillos, Malaga.

It'll be interesting to see how this site develops as it's certainly got great potential. It's never going to be another Fuente de Piedra but being located near one of the best areas for steppe birds in Seville Province (Osuna) it has a lot going for it.  Certainly, those arriving via Seville or Jerez airport to see the raptor migration across the Straits might be tempted to divert to this attractive site (particularly in spring) if it was better known. Since English is in many ways the 'lingua franca' of birdwatching some signs, pamphlets or information on the web in that language would be very helpful indeed. As I wrote this I was acutely aware of my lack of knowledge about the local situation and I do not mean to disparage the great efforts of those working locally but I hope that the view of an extranjero birdwatcher who loves and wishes to promote birding in Spain may prove usefully provocative!
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Review: Britain's Birds (... it's pretty useful in Spain too!)

11/8/2016

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Britain's Birds by Hume, Still, Swash Harrop & Tipling       Publisher - WILDGuides  ISBN 978-0-691-15889-1  £19.95 (widely discounted) c600 species 3,200 photos 560 pages

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​As this is a blog about the birds of Cadiz province it may reasonably be asked whether a review of a book about Britain's birds is a suitable subject for discussion here. Rather surprisingly this book only omits about twenty-five species found in Spain but not in the UK (e.g sandgrouse, various raptors, Azure-winged Magpie, etc). Even those “Spanish/Mediterranean” birds recorded in Britain only as rarities (e.g. Little Bustard, Spanish Sparrow, etc) get surprisingly full treatment (for an example of this see the final photo at the end of this review). Hence for many groups (particularly perhaps seabirds, waders, ducks, skuas and gulls) this book remains a very valuable ID guide when in Iberia even if it has no information on occurrence or distribution in Spain. Well, that's the excuse over and done with, the real reason is that I love writing about good generously illustrated bird books!

Over the last few decades, an unwritten rule seems to have developed that the more 'serious' the field or identification guide, the greater the area it attempts to cover and the more likely it is to be illustrated by good quality artwork rather than photographs. So the announcement of a new photo-guide exclusively on British birds hardly raised expectations given the plethora of similar guides, generally of an indifferent quality, that have been published over the years. Yet both the name of the publisher, WildGuides, and the team involved hinted that something more revolutionary might be on the way. Yet I doubt that many will have anticipated just how revolutionary and cutting edge a book was about to be published. It should be noted that the resulting book is no field guide but rather a somewhat bulky small handbook (21.5 cm tall x 16cm wide x 3.5cms thick). Irritatingly, had it been just 2 cm narrower it would have just slipped into a 'standard' pocket of a Barbour-type jacket (although the top may have peeked out and, at just under 1200g, it would have strained the stitching). Accordingly, it's a book for a small rucksack or to be left in the glove-box.
PicturePhoto Index
The thing that most struck me about the book when I flicked through it, apart from its bulk, is how superbly thought through and carefully designed it has been. The front book flap has a useful aide memoire for the maps and codes used in the text and the rear flap a good short index. Flicking past the commendably short introduction takes you to a six-page “photo-index” to the various types of birds that will be a boon to the less expert. Another huge advantage is that the increasingly less than functional taxonomic order has been abandoned for an intuitive order that is not only easier to negotiate but also makes a comparison with similar species more straight forward. Before any purists have an attack of the vapours, it should be noted that the bird list in the back (neatly also serving as a guide to protected status) is in taxonomic order. This is a sensible compromise that all field guides should follow.

PictureRaces of Iceland Gull & Rarer Gulls
Once past those necessary, but less exciting, explanatory pages you arrive at the meat of the book; the species accounts. Birds are marshalled into thirty groups (e.g. Wildfowl, Seabirds, Waders, Aerial Feeders) each one of which has an instructive introduction. These vary from one to four pages (apart from the bustards which are reduced to a short paragraph) and outline vital factors such as ageing, moult and so on. All of the commoner 'core' species have at least a single full page illustrating and describing all the expected plumages and variations. Some highly variable species (e.g. Iceland Gull & Snow Bunting) or a group of similar birds (e.g. Redpoll) have two or three pages. Where flight identification is important (e.g. ducks & raptors) there are excellent comparative plates. Remarkably, the skuas are covered in no less than nine pages and an astonishing c60 images (c10 more images than in the Collins Bird Guide although the latter has a far more detailed text) - see below. All of these are masterly done. Less common species (e.g Barred Warbler) are generally allotted half a page or sometimes less (e.g. rare 'chats' and warblers are three or four to a page and American landbirds squeezed into six to a page).

PictureRaces of Wren
One of the things that mark this guide out as something special is the comprehensive nature of the species depicted and the exhaustive number of races and plumage variations illustrated. I know of no other book that depicts all of the UK's races of Wren. Remarkably, it covers all UK and Irish species recorded up until March 2016. All plumages one is likely to see in the UK are covered (although adult male Pallid Harrier and juvenile Corn Bunting are missing). As indicated above this means species are depicted by an impressive number of images (few have less than four and many a dozen or so with gulls, terns, and raptors being particularly generously treated). A quick calculation suggested an average of c8.5 photos per species which is impressive particularly as a direct comparison with the artist-illustrated Collins Bird Guide (Svensson et al) showed a lower average (c7.5). Amongst photographic guides only Crossley's guides (see crossleybooks.com/) have a similarly generous number of photos. Another big plus is that the images are larger than you might expect (the main ones being more than twice the size of those found in most field guides). The overall quality of the photographs is high which is, perhaps, only what one should expect these days. What is most impressive, although it may not be so obvious, is the great technical achievement of seamlessly incorporating multiple images into a convincing single plate. Equally impressive is how similar species are shown in similar poses despite multiple images. Photos also seem to have been selected so that on every plate the light source is consistent, helping the sense of unity and conformity giving the impression that somehow all the images were taken at the same time! Sourcing and matching these must have been hugely time-consuming. Until the advent and increasing popularity of digital photography, it's doubtful that a book like this could have been produced.  All this technical wizardry has produced one of the very few photographic guides that can bear comparison with one using good artwork (see sample plates below).  

PictureMarsh Warbler et al - Note the sensible use of a comparative table
​The descriptive text is very condensed, sometimes a little too telegrammatic, although it is helped by the judicious use of bold text, occasional use of coloured fonts and, where needed, annotations next to the photographic images. At times I felt that this brevity fell a little short and was less successful in painting a word picture' of the species than the descriptions in the Collins Bird Guide. However, any short comings were often handsomely made up for by additional comparative plates (e.g. Yellow-legged & Caspian Gull). This refreshingly flexible approach is also reflected by the frequent presentation of 'key features' on tricky identification groups in tabular form. Treatment of vocalisations can be a little sketchy at times (although more than adequate for the most part). However, Rob Hume deserves huge credit for going back to basics and describing all vocalisations afresh rather than depending on well worn and familiar renditions. Notes on habitat are even more limited.  Rather surprisingly there isn't a diagram showing bird topography strategically placed inside the back cover or in the introduction. Instead, there are a number of 'feather maps' within the introductions to the various groups of birds. In some ways this makes a lot of sense but I think a generic version placed where it could easily be found would have been useful as it would have come readily to hand. 

PictureAlthough the colour reproduction of the BTO map in this photo is poor (pale blue/mauve being hard to see), you still can see that the map from the BTO Guide is more subtle and, since it shows populations in Yorkshire, East Kent and Dungeness, more accurate.
That I have repeatedly compared this book to the all-conquering Collins Bird Guide is significant and that it comes through the comparison not only relatively unscathed but with it's status as a high-quality guide enhanced is remarkable. In this context, it's a huge disappointment to find such a technically brilliant book that has been so carefully designed and thought through has stumbled so badly when it comes to its maps. My local knowledge of Kent's birdlife alerted me to this problem and comparing the distribution maps to those in the recent BTO “Bird Atlas” or their recent Collins BTO Guide to British Birds (an otherwise inferior book) confirms it: too many maps have errors. The comparison with the BTO Guide  is an interesting one. Both are new photographic guides which make similar claims to show all plumages and primarily aspire to be ID guides. The BTO guide though is in two volumes (common and rarer birds) which are individually eminently pocketable although I doubt anyone will take both into the field. The BTO book has over 30 pages of introduction, Britain's Birds, less than ten. The ID descriptions in the first are in 'proper' sentences without any highlighting of key features and are supplemented by rather fewer annotations on the plates. In contrast, the text in Britain's Birds reads more like a telegram but, thanks to careful use of highlighting, gets the point over much more effectively and is much better supported by annotations and, where needed, the use of tabulated information. Thanks to Britain's Birds greater size and bulk, it also has roughly twice as many images and of a larger size. Despite being one of the better photoguides, the BTO guide is very conventional and has not been so well or functionally designed, small size apart (note that birds are in taxonomic order). However, it is much superior in one important respect; the maps. Despite being significantly smaller than those in Britain's Birds, the maps in the BTO guide are more accurate and also more effective in showing not only the breeding/winter distribution but also relative frequency in those seasons (the photo here doesn't do it justice). In contrast, the maps in Britain's Birds are more generalised and, more importantly, too often simply wrong (check Marsh Harrier and Corn Bunting for example). In addition the BTO guide has a neat 'calendar wheel' showing seasonal abundance which the rival guide could usefully have employed (and arguably could include song/breeding periods with a little ingenuity). However, like most small maps those in neither guide cope well with showing small or isolated populations.  

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​Despite the growing landslide of popular guides on birds, all claiming to be 'the last word', it's very unusual to find one that largely matches, let alone often exceeds, the promise of its publicity.  Lars Jonsson's Birds of Europe was one such, the Collins Guide was another and Peter Hayman's unfairly neglected Birdwatcher's Pocket Guide to Britain and Europe a third but until now I would have struggled to think of a fourth candidate to rank alongside them. It may be a little ironic that a book clearly designed to be used in the field is arguably too large to be practical but the overall quality is so outstanding this hardly seems to matter. ​Despite minor caveats (asee also below), this book effortlessly slips into the same category. It raises the art of the photoguide to a new level. It is no mere regurgitation of familiar information or approaches but a fresh revolutionary look at how to present information on the identification of birds. Few books manage the difficult trick of being equally useful to the beginner (cf the photo index) and the more expert (cf treatment of scoters and subspecies) but this is certainly one. The biggest annoyance, though, is to be denied this level of utility and depth of information when travelling abroad. A sister guide shorn of the most extreme rarities to make room for 'European only' species would be a welcome addition to any bookshelf. Even so, no British birder should be without it and sensible birders across the Channel, including those in Spain, will want a copy too.                                                                                                                                                                                    
STOP PRESS - talking to the publisher at the UK Bird Fair it seems that, as hoped, a European version is 'in the pipeline' although no details are available.  Unfortunately, it also seems that there are more factual mistakes in the book than just the maps. Sharper eyes than mine have noticed, for example, that Audouin's Gull juvenile (p139) is probably juv Yellow-legged Gull, that the head of a Juv. Little Ringed Plover (p182) is  actually a Ringed Plover, the first winter "Common" Sandpiper is a Spotted, the first winter Richard's Pipit (p360)  is a Tawny Pipit and the juvenile Serin (p485) is a  juvenile Citril Finch. Some on social media claim about 50-60 wrongly captioned birds (mainly the wrong plumage/sex rather than the wrong species). There's even been talk that the publisher should recall the book but I think this a rather precious over-reaction which fails to recognise the book's many strengths. Yes, it's disappointing that any errors have slipped through but with 3,000+ photos this has to be seen in proportion and the book remains both highly functional and very useful. As the publisher has been made aware of these problems, new editions (inc. the promised European version) should be even better.  

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    About me ...

    Hi I'm John Cantelo. I've been birding seriously  since the 1960s when I met up with some like minded folks (all of us are still birding!) at Taunton's School in Southampton.  I have lived in Kent , where I taught History and Sociology, since the late 1970s. In that time I've served on the committees of both my local RSPB group and the county ornithological society (KOS).  I have also worked as a part-time field teacher for the RSPB at Dungeness.  Having retired I now spend as much time as possible in Alcala de los Gazules in SW Spain.   When I'm not birding I edit books for the Crossbill Guides series.

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