• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Where premium quality meets exceptional value. ZEISS Conquest HDX.

Your most anticipated futures books (5 Viewers)

A Natural History of Sea Serpents by Adrian Shine

scheduled for February 2025



A Natural History of Sea Serpents, re-examines the cold-case enigma of sea serpents and monsters described by impeccable witnesses over three centuries. These reports have sometimes intrigued and puzzled the most eminent scientists of their times, yet often became the butt of popular derision.

Naturalist Adrian Shine, best known for his fifty years examining Loch Ness as a ‘sympathetic sceptic’, reveals how the loch actually held the key to the greater mystery. He exonerates the integrity of most witnesses, often remarks upon the accuracy of their observations yet offers bold and radical interpretations of what they have seen. The book digs deep into the roots of the legend and shows how expectations ‘evolved’ from those ‘serpents’ to prehistoric ‘monsters’ during the nineteenth century. The book cites over a hundred reports and contains as many illustrations as evidence for its conclusions. His findings, stemming from knowledge of ships, the sea and the true monsters living there, cover the entire spectrum of reports, giving new insight, for example, into the famous HMS Daedalus episode of 1848, the description of a very unusual creature seen by two zoologists in 1904 and the serpent seen by hundreds off the coast of New England in 1817.


 
I have long admired Lynx's "Birds of Spain" and the good news is that the second edition of the English version (based on the 4th edition of the original Spanish version) is due to be published at the end of the month. It has been expanded to cover 599 (vs 567) species with 191 (vs 173) occasional/accidental, species. It promises "... updated maps, illustrations, and digital content". At (29.50€) it's relatively expensive for a fairly small but it's an invaluable resource for birders visiting Spain. The only other readily available source of similar info on populations/distribution is either online or in the decade-old 'Birds of the Iberian Peninsula'. I cannot recommend it too highly, my only caveat is that it hasn't been enlarged and amalgamated with the same publisher's 'Aves de Portugal' (which uses the same illustrations but has never had an English version) to make a single 'Birds of Iberia'.


1737726466578.png
 
I hope that John Gale doesn't mind me posting his superlative plate of Soft-plumaged Petrels here. It's from the soon-to-be published (second half of 2025🤞) The Complete ID Guide to Tubenoses of the North Atlantic and Western Palearctic by Robert L. Flood & E. Ashley Fisher (Pub. Scilly Pelagics).

Really nice to see Bob's work on the excellent but frequently hard to source smaller guides being put into a comprehensive book, this will be a really valuable resource!
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top