6 weeks in the UK - which field guide book to get (1 Viewer)

[SteveClark]

The book I take everywhere is the Mitchel Beazley guide, it is slim yet packed with ID illustrations. It is completely oriented to ID rather than giving much background info on the species, and uses a confusing set of icons to illustrate the rarity, migration status etc. however for portability vs. ID help I really like it. Then you can find out more from another guide that evening from your armchair...

A sound strategy! I’ll check it out.

 

[Richard D]

The book I take everywhere is the Mitchel Beazley guide, it is slim yet packed with ID illustrations. It is completely oriented to ID rather than giving much background info on the species, and uses a confusing set of icons to illustrate the rarity, migration status etc. however for portability vs. ID help I really like it. Then you can find out more from another guide that evening from your armchair...

Great little guide - (the original green cover version served me for many years) but getting rather outdated. I'd love a new edition in the same basic format.

 

[Jos Stratford]

Great little guide - (the original green cover version served me for many years) but getting rather outdated. I'd love a new edition in the same basic format.

Agree 👍

 

[StephenHampshire]

I

Great little guide - (the original green cover version served me for many years) but getting rather outdated. I'd love a new edition in the same basic format.

I keep buying second hand ones as mine fall to pieces! It slips into my small bag with a map water bottle and binos

 

[pianoman]

I

I keep buying second hand ones as mine fall to pieces! It slips into my small bag with a map water bottle and binos

Now that I look at mine, I see it is called the "new" Birdwatcher's field guide, dating from 2002 and presumably newer than the green cover one. It's hardback and has taken a beating but held together well. Shame that it is out of print but used editions seem to be around.

 

[John Cantelo]

It's good to see Peter Hayman & Rob Hume's "Birdwatchers' Pocket Guide" getting the attention it deserves. It never really got the credit it deserved as, in my view, it was the best ID guide to European birds until the Collins Guide came along. Hayman pioneered the multiple-image & notes approach. It's a heretical position, I know, but for some species, it provided better detail than the first edition of Collins Guide. It's the only European bird guide I can think of that actually fits into a shirt pocket. A version with maps & notes on vocalisations, even at the price of being a little larger, would be a useful alternative to the Collins Guide for use in Europe. The large format version - Complete Guide to the Birdlife of Britain and Europe - really does Hayman's superb artwork justice.

 

[Butty]

Very very nice to see Peter Hayman getting some of the credit he deserves and is hardly ever given. He was a decade and more ahead of his time, and the first I know of to draw flying raptors as raptors actually are - even before Ian Willis; many examples in The Popular Handbook of British Birds (itself a classic of its time). A nice bloke too, and - Wiki suggests - 93 and still going. I hope he may get to hear that he's still very much appreciated.

 

[Stu57]

I really like British Birds pocket guide published by Princeton it's got lovely pictures and all the information you are looking for.

But a little book to consider and supplement your bigger book is the little Collins Gem birds book it's super small and light and it fits in any pocket and I can grab it and use it without much trouble even one handed.

It's around £5 and it is so simple as a quick spotting guide and although it may not hold as much information as the bigger books mentioned it's worth adding to your choice of field guide for the sheer convenience

Cheers Stu