
As the preface of this book makes clear this new guide is intended as a “more user friendly edition” of Dirk Foresman's earlier ground breaking work “The Raptors of Europe and the Middle East: A Handbook of Field Identification” with a “clear focus on flight identification”. Accordingly, this book lacks the detailed notes on identification of non-flying birds although for the most part, particularly observers migration watch-points like the Strait of Gibraltar birds this omission is no great drawback. After two useful opening chapters on “Hawk-watching in and around Europe” (by Keith L Bildstein & Anna Sandor) and migration ecology of raptors (by Ian Newton) there are almost 500 pages devoted entirely to identification of raptors in flight all illustrated by some glorious photos.




