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Book Reccomendation (not field guides) (1 Viewer)

M

mattwhite

Well-known member
Hi All

I have almost finished reading 'Birders' by Mark Corker, this is my first book on the subject of Birding and I have really enjoyed it, it was hard to put it down.

I was wondering if there are any similar books to this?

Can anyone reccomend some other birding books?

Matt
 
If you look in the books mags etc section there are threads on this.

My personal favourite (but I am a twitcher) is The Big Twitch by Sean Dooley. Although it deals with Australian listing it touches many chords and is also very funny in places, i.e. it is everything birding should be about.

John
 
Try
'Bill Oddie's little black bird book' - humourous look at Birding, bit dated but still funny

'Follow that bird' Bill Oddie - an account of 6 of Bill's birding trips

'Time to fly' Jim Flegg - nice book on bird migration from the BTO

'Birds that came back' John Gooders - a recap on the species that have come back from the brink in the UK.

'A sky full of starlings' Stephen Moss - an account of a year's birding.
 
The Big Twitch and also Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola, both by Sean Dooley are very good reads - and anything written by Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, Bill Oddie's Gone Birding, Follow That Bird! and Gripping Yarns are some of his better works in my opinion.

A bird in the bush: a social history of birdwatching by Stephen Moss is also a pretty good read.
 
Andrew Whitehouse said:
'Birdscapes' by Jeremy Mynott:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birdscapes-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265029547&sr=8-1
Click to expand...

You beat me to it! This, in my opinion, is the best book ever written on the subject of why we watch birds and what they mean to us. It manages to combine lyrical prose with an astonishing level of erudition imparted with the lightest of touches and an unmatched degree of insight. It's quite humorous too!

At the other extreme is 'Down and Dirty Birding' by Joey Slinger - not perhaps to everyone's taste, but like a scurrilous version of Bill oddie's 'Little Black Bird Book' (itself a classic). There are plenty more which I'm sure others will suggest .....
 
Aidrian Riley's 'Arrivals and and Rivals: a birding oddity'. More manic twitching.

Charlie Elder's 'While Flocks Last'. Very readable account of his efforts to see all the Red Listed birds in the UK.

Time Dee's 'The Running Sky'. Lyrical and thought provoking account of his birding life.
 
Blokes and Birds (Stephen Moss again) is a little book with a page to each of about fifty well-known birders, and I do mean birders not celebrities. There is an anecdote (bird or birding stuff) from each. On the opposite page is a B&W pic of their nominated favourite bird.

Presumably not enough out-and-out birder girls to get their own book....

John
 
Xabi said:
If you liked 'Birders', you will also enjoy 'Bill Oddie's little black bird book'
Click to expand...

Indeed - I preferred LBBB to Birders. I'd also suggest Follow That Bird also by Bill Oddie, To See Every Bird On Earth by Dan Koeppel and Bearded Tit by Rory McGrath. More broadly nature related but How To be Wild (and also How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher) by Simon Barnes is a good read.
 
Fozzybear said:
Indeed - I preferred LBBB to Birders. I'd also suggest Follow That Bird also by Bill Oddie, To See Every Bird On Earth by Dan Koeppel and Bearded Tit by Rory McGrath. More broadly nature related but How To be Wild (and also How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher) by Simon Barnes is a good read.
Click to expand...

I'll second Dan Koeppel's book, which I reviewed a while back.
 
I have enjoyed many of those mentioned above but recommend my current favorite 'While Flocks Last' by Charlie Elder which is an account of a lapsed birder, childhood interest, dropped at adolescence, reacquainting himself in mid life by uniquely going on a quest to see the 40 red list endangered British Birds within a year. Very readable, serious and funny.
 
A good read is Ken Kaufman's "Kingbird Highway". It covers his Big Year effort as a teenager to see as many birds as possible in North America.
Ken has since gone on to be a leader in the American birding community.
 
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