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Best European Field Guides – a mini-review (1 Viewer)

The range of birds is also larger .........

Actually, the range is not larger than in the Collins-Mullarney/Svensson. It only seems so, as the title is misleading. The book covers only the NEAR East, but the addition to the main title says MIDDLE East.
 
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Actually, the range is not larger than in the Collins-Mullarney/Svensson. It only seems so, as the title is misleading. The book covers only the NEAR East, but the addition to the main title says MIDDLE East.

Ah, sorry, I meant the number of birds rather than the geographical range. And even by that, I mean those treated in the full text (like Hooded Merganser, etc). The copy I've got here is from 1972.
Thanks for the comments on it!
 
Actually,
the geographical range is a little bit larger, covering e.g iraq and kuwait which collins does not
so some species like grey hypocolius, iraq babbler, indian roller, hume's wheatear, crab plover etc. are included which aren't in (the main part of) collins..
 
Which is why the 2 Macmillan books are so good, they don't bother about the easy stuff, and just concentrate on the problem birds. It's such a shame they are out of print.

For those who don't know the books, they are

1 The Macmillan Field Guide to Bird Identification - Harris, Tucker and Vinnicombe

2 The Macmillan Birder's Guide to European and Middle Eastern Birds - Harris, Shirihai and Christie

You can occasionally pick them up in second hand book shops

Just to say as mentioned on another thread I have just put a spare copy of the Harris, Tucker and Vinicombe in very good condition on an internet auction site.

Stephen.
 
I'd pretty much agree with John's review. I think the trouble with the Collins is they were limited to 400 pages and tried to jam too much in to that format with the result that it looks crowded and not easy on the eye. As a beginner the Knightley, Madge is much nicer to look thru and you get max 2 birds per page as opposed to 4-5 in the Collins. The large format Collins is lovely to look thru though and you don't notice the crowding quite so much on the larger format.
In the Knightley Madge I also prefer the fact that you don't have to wade thru large sections of species that you're unlikely ever to see, also its more portable and the book is better designed with a nicer easier to open cover.

Possible solution in my view would be to have pared down Collins version of British birds or the same species list as the Knightley, Madge with much better layout that would give you, you could still have the full version, seems would be much more appreciated by beginning birders.
 
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Untiil the next Collins' comes out, I am using the field guide from this AA birdwatching kit.

It's fairly comprehensive and comes with a decent bird song CD (although the included binoculars are, of course, rubbish). However, the big advantage is price. You can often pick this kit up for chump change in those discount book stores that ever major city seems to have these days. I think I paid £4.99 for mine - at that price, you just won't get anything better.
 
Kightley, Madge & Nurney
No good, covers some of Sweden and Norway and even Estonia, map cuts off Finland.

Isn't the clue in the title of the book? "Pocket Guide to the Birds of Britain & NW Europe". Finland isn't North-West Europe, so Norway and parts of Sweden are apt, Finland is not so.
 
Ah, sorry, I meant the number of birds rather than the geographical range. And even by that, I mean those treated in the full text (like Hooded Merganser, etc). The copy I've got here is from 1972.
Thanks for the comments on it!


A nice, if neglected book - the 1995 edition was a significant improvement on earlier ones,
 
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