Europe's Birds: An Identification Guide (1 Viewer)

[DMW]

I am pretty much the same way; locally, I often just carry my cell phone with the Sibley app. If am going to be someplace where the birds are less familiar though, I much prefer a physical book, even if sometimes they may be awkward to carry. Also with physical books I can jot down notes as needed if I need to update something or if I am using the checklist in the back as an actual checklist.

I will also admit, when I am home studying for a trip or just looking through a book, I just find it more enjoyable to physically page through a book. As someone who spends a large majority of there life online, I like the escape of physical media.

I feel the same way. I actually see digital and physical copies as performing separate functions. I very rarely carry books into the field even on foreign trips, and a phone app means I don't have to, but still have the ability to look something up straight away.
Physical books (for me) are a much better resource for pre-trip study, or for detailed reference once I'm back from the field.
The answer is to have both, and it would be a good idea for publishers to offer both as a discounted package, which I think would increase their overall sales.

 

[THE_FERN]

Absolutely, undeniable but folk who like hard copy, are unlikely to shift easily until books in their physical form, become impossible to get.

Aside from the issues many times covered on this forum regarding tech generally, charging, faults, damage etc, some people, me included, seem to have been gifted with square fingers. I find the small, hand held devices, really difficult to use, physically, I just don't seem to have the manual dexterity required, or the eyesight these days either!

With phones, the arrangement of buttons on the side of them, means that if my wife passes me her phone to look at something, I invariably make contact with something on the exterior and end up losing the intended page or enacting something else unintended, this is before the actual page navigation, I'm just too clumsy it seems and will never, be carrying tech with me as my primary resource.

If you can use these things with any amount of competence as most can, the advantages in terms of the pure volume of information you can carry, are clear.

Answer: a tablet. Choose your dimensions. Do wish typing on phones was a better experience (swipe-typing helps but none are perfect; I always forget to read after Autocorrect mangles)

 

[THE_FERN]

Flipping through that many images on a screen seems less efficient.

Niels

Bad (app) design. Those I've tried haven't really thought about it / clearly weren't written by birders. In principle, should be easier to find things as you can apply as many indices as you like, not just c2 (=common, scientific names). And graphical indices like thumbnails.

[Edit: images above are a case in point. I can easily see all the birds and, if I zoom in, read all the words. So how many species is that? And my eyesight is terrible...]

 

[John Cantelo]

A tangent, I know, but discussions elsewhere about this guide has revealed that WildGuides has a "East Africa's Birds" project in hand covering 1400 species and necessitating specific photo-safaris to obtain necessary images of rare/localised species. (No, I don't have any info about the number of pages/photos or likely publication date - even the title is an assumption). I find it hard to see how such a book could be usefully comprehensive in its range of images and yet remain relatively portable. I'd have thought that even this book with c900 species is pushing the limit.

 

[Andy Adcock]

A tangent, I know, but discussions elsewhere about this guide has revealed that WildGuides has a "East Africa's Birds" project in hand covering 1400 species and necessitating specific photo-safaris to obtain necessary images of rare/localised species. (No, I don't have any info about the number of pages/photos or likely publication date - even the title is an assumption). I find it hard to see how such a book could be usefully comprehensive in its range of images and yet remain relatively portable.

Agree, surely more useful (intended?) as a reference rather than a field guide?

 

[jurek]

A tangent, I know, but discussions elsewhere about this guide has revealed that WildGuides has a "East Africa's Birds" project in hand covering 1400 species and necessitating specific photo-safaris to obtain necessary images of rare/localised species. (No, I don't have any info about the number of pages/photos or likely publication date - even the title is an assumption). I find it hard to see how such a book could be usefully comprehensive in its range of images and yet remain relatively portable. I'd have thought that even this book with c900 species is pushing the limit.

Looking forward to it! During my first visits to exotic countries, I struggled with assigning birds to groups. A weaver or a serin? A greenbul or a warbler? A black-chested snake eagle or a martial eagle? Photos are much better in showing 'jizz' of the bird. This would be even better in Central or South America, with all those rusty-brown suboscines and hummingbirds.

Another big help would be highlighting or allowing to select 'standard' very common birds, and detailing habitat / place requirements. In a normal book I am often perplexed with 10 or so similar species in a group, but only 2 or none are really confusable in the field, because they separate themselves by range, habitat or behavior. Ideal would be a filter of only birds found in cultivated landscape.

And I am strictly in the camp that the field guide is on your phone, and only the paper reference sits in your backpack. There 1400 species is practical - if it is possible to swipe page by page with your finger. Here I find an ordinary photo galery application better than most bird apps. It is even faster than flipping a book.

 

[John Cantelo]

As I feared, the publication date has slipped again and this book is now promised for October 2021. Let's hope that these repeated delays are due to fine-tuning the book to avoid the minor infidelities that bedeviled the first edition of its sister publication Britain's Birds. Evidently, the final pdfs of Europe's Birds have now been sent to the printers so the publication in autumn looks likely to 'stick'. If it's not already on your Christmas list perhaps now would be a good time to add it!

 

[Hans Martin Høiby]

According to a tweet from WildGuides on JUL-21 the UK publication date is set to OCT-12

 

[david kelly]

According to my Alexa smart speaker my copy is due to be delivered on 9 December 2021.

David

 

[Mysticete]

According to my Alexa smart speaker my copy is due to be delivered on 9 December 2021.

David

Amazon is not a reliable source for publication dates....they often add extra months to dates, I assume to account for future potential delays and to keep customers from bugging them.

 

[nkbj]

According to my Alexa smart speaker my copy is due to be delivered on 9 December 2021.

David

Seems to be just after the US publication date, which is set to December 7 according to the Princeton University Press homepage. The UK publication date is the set to October 12.

 

[John Cantelo]

I posted these two specimen double page spreads from this guide elsewhere on Bird Forum (on the thread about most anticipated bird books) but as not everyone may be following that thread I'm sure they will bear repition here. The text for these species appears to have been fully revised and the number of photo images (compared to Britain's Birds) increasing from 6 to 8 for Yellowhammer and from 4 to 6 plus 4 hybrids (plus enjoying a full page rather than about two-thirds). I don't think any other single volume guide has such coverage of hybrid Pine Bunting/Yellowhammer nor, come to that, illustrates Yellowhammer subspecies so well. Orphean Warblers get a quarter more of a page but the photographic images used double from 5 to ten (plus a reused illustration) and the layout is much improved. However, coverage of Lesser Whitethroats seems to have suffered with images reduced in size and number (from 5 to 4) and denied a full page perhaps due to being squeezed out somewhat by details of Eastern/Western Orphean Warblers - perhaps a reminder of the compromises that have to be made in producing a relatively portable yet comprehensive guide (although perhaps more details of eastern races of Lesser are given overleaf). With this in mind these specimen plates are a very encouraging (although not unexpected) indication of quality of the final product.

 

[Nicola Main]

Just made an announcement on their Facebook page saying that it has now gone to press 👏

 

[John Cantelo]

The forward, introduction and a lot more sample plates (ducks, swans & geese) are now available for perusal via the "Look Inside" function on the Amazon page for this book. The photo index at the front which gives the pages per group shows how much the original (Britain's Birds) has been 'squeezed' to fit everything in and it's not surprising that the introduction calls it a 'handbook' rather than field guide. There's also a lot more on ageing and moult in the intro' (perhaps signalling some overviews in the text have been cut). Coverage of the Atlantic islands (except the Cape Verde islands) is confirmed. Inevitably some species have been given less space and for some there are fewer images (a couple of helpful images of flocks have gone AWOL), but many retain full page coverage (although the Wigeon plate looks less helpful than that in the earlier work).

 

[Nicola Main]

Showing as 'In stock' now on NHBS (it wasn't this morning) so I've just ordered it now. Can't wait to compare it with 'Britain's Birds'!

 

[Andy Adcock]

Showing as 'In stock' now on NHBS (it wasn't this morning) so I've just ordered it now. Can't wait to compare it with 'Britain's Birds'!

I just ordered from Speedyhen althought it's a 'pre order' but all in all, it's well over £5 cheaper than NHBS when you consider postage which is free at Speedyhen.

 

[Nicola Main]

Thanks for that Andy I'll keep them in mind for future purchases! I've always used NHBS for special nature books rather than Amazon. Even though you have to wait a tad longer they package the books properly and don't send you ridiculous amounts of cardboard in an order. I'm hoping it arrives at the start of next week!

 

[Strontium Dog]

Mine arrived from Wildsounds this morning although I didn't have time to open it before leaving for work.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Mine arrived from Wildsounds this morning although I didn't have time to open it before leaving for work.

I've been loyal to Wildsounds for years, Duncan and his partner Peter are nice blokes but on fairly cheap purchases which don't qualify for free postage, I often find better deals. Postage can add 20-25% to the cost of cheaper books, especially if you use NHBS.

Mine is imminent according to the PO who insist on texting me every five minutes.

 

[Nicola Main]

Anyone received theirs yet? And thoughts if you have! Mine is getting sent to my work address so hoping it'll be there when I go in tomorrow 😉