Essential Reading List? (1 Viewer)

Hi All,

What are the essential books for a birding library - the giants of ornithological publishing that any self respecting bird enthusiast absolutely MUST have?

(I'm UK based, so I guess a Western Palearctic bias will apply to an extent, but not exclusively)

Thanks in advance.

Handbook of the Birds of the World, 9-volume Birds of Western Pal, HANZAB, Handbook to the Birds of Africa, Collins!! And then there are the numerous fieldguides and monographs too......

Nice idea for a thread but you'll get a load of different thoughts on what constitutes essential.
For me, the essentials on my shelf are (no particular order)

Collins Bird Guide 2nd edition hardback Mullarney et al. (paperback 2nd edition in car)

Gulls of Europe, Asia and N America. Malling et al. Helm

Raptors of the World. Feguson-Lees et al. Helm

Macmillan Field guide to Bird Identification. Harris et al.

all are used regularly.
If money was no object I think I could find room for the Handbook of Birds of the World....

Yikes - The handbook of the Birds of the World currently £2,093.28 on Amazon... and there's still a couple of volumes to go!!! Cool!!!!