Trip Planning help - books? (1 Viewer)

Hello - My wife has decided she would like to see Ireland for our next big vacation, and since I have taken her to Ecuador and Costa Rica on birding trips over the last few years, it is her turn to decide. This means it won't be a dedicated birding trip, but she is very good about letting me get some good birding in on the side.

That being said, I would like to have as much birding info as possible, so I can help "steer" some of her decisions. The trip probably won't be until 2014, so I'll have lots of time to prepare.

I've seen recommendations for Eric Dempsey's "Finding Birds in Ireland", but how about Paul Milne and Clive Hutchinson's "Where to Watch Birds: Ireland"? It is a couple of years newer, but doesn't seem to get the press of Dempsey. Also, would Dempsey's "Complete Field Guide to Irish Birds" be the best guidebook? I'd like to try to minimize the number of books I'm carrying.

Again, this trip is a long ways off, probably fall of 2013 or summer of 2014, but as I hear that Ireland is a wonderful country to visit and bird, I want to start researching as soon as possible. Thank you.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Eric Dempsey's book is the better option.
The where to watch book, in my opinion, was simply a reprint of the 1st edition, with very little thought and research put into the updates in the second edition.

I think you will find the maps in Dempsey's book invaluable.

Regards

Owen

Owen is right about the "Where to watch" guides. The Dempsey one is amazingly thorough. For a field guide, there are 2 common choices. One is to use the Dempsey book like you suggest. I like it because it has Irish maps, times of year, says if the bird is abundant or very rare here etc. and you are not distracted by 20 pages of larks just to identify the common one you get here. I am only really birding much for the past 12 months after a gap of nearly 40 years and I use it a lot.
The other common choice is the "Collins Guide"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Collins-Bir...8149/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361205619&sr=8-1
which is good because it covers all of Europe so you might use it again.
Des

p.s. July is a very dead month here for birds.

Thank you very much for your replies. I will definitely try to get my hands on the Dempsey "Where To.." guide to start. With work schedules, we are hoping for September of this year, and if not then it will be 2014.

Thanks again, and I'm sure I will have more questions as the planning progresses!

Paul