This book is for children but I enjoyed it, and I suspect younger children will too. A frog wanders around and comes across various other creatures, all of whom he engages in conversation before he eats them! The illustrations are big and bold and attractive. In each there are half a dozen hidden mini-beasts for…
Category: BOOK REVIEWS
Books of the year?
These are the 20 books that I have reviewed on this blog in the last 12 months. They will all be the perfect present for someone this Christmas – it’s just a case of matching the book to the person. The publication of The Atlas and Birds and People were both ‘events’ as well as…
Sunday Book Review – Bird Atlas 2007-11 by Dawn Balmer et al.
I’ve seen Andy Clements quoted as saying that this is the ‘most important British and Irish bird book for two decades‘ and once or twice thought – well, we’ll be the judge of that! And you must judge for yourself, but I would find it difficult to argue. And not only is this book important,…
Sunday Book Review – The Crossley ID Guide by Richard Crossley and Dominic Couzens
This review is part of a ‘blog tour‘ where yesterday, this book, The Crossley ID Guide, was reviewed by 10,000 Birds. This is a useful guide to bird identification aimed at beginners and intermediate birders. I guess I would put myself at the high end of intermediate as I know all the common birds…
Sunday Book Review – Winging It: birding for low flyers by Andrew Fallan
This book is another one about being an ‘avid’ birder in a world of experts who are better at identifying birds than are you. It’s a somewhat engaging journey around well-known birding localities seeing and missing birds. I was pleased every time that Andrew Fallan saw his target species and he does collect a…
Sunday Book Review – Adar Nythu Gogledd Cymru
…also known as The Breeding Birds of North Wales, edited by Anne Brenchley, Geoff Gibbs, Rhion Pritchard and Ian Spence – but I guess you realised that. There are going to be lots of atlases around this year and next, I guess, as spin-offs from the Britain and Ireland Bird Atlas (to which I intend…
Sunday Book Review – Birduder 344 by Rob Sawyer
This book takes us through Rob Sawyer’s life and the birds he has seen, missed and misidentified. The title refers to the fact that Sawyer regards himself as a cross between a ‘dude’ and a ‘birder’, and that his life list reached 344 species. I don’t know Sawyer but he comes across as a reasonable…
Sunday Book Review – Tracks and Signs by Lars-Henrik Olsen
This book covers animals and birds (birds are animals!) of Britain and Europe (Britain is part of Europe!). It’s quite a good book. Because it covers the whole of Europe you will learn how to spot signs of Musk Ox or White Stork in your locality. I don’t know much about identifying species from their…
Sunday Book Review – The World’s Rarest Birds by Erik Hirschfeld, Andy Swash and Robert Still
This book is actually about threatened birds rather than rare birds – it deals with those 197 species which are regarded as Critically Endangered and those 389 which are Endangered. Having said that, many of these species are very rare. For example, there are (or were) 27 Sulu Hornbills in the world (on three islands…
Sunday Book review – Scilly Birding by Simon Davey.
Oh to be on Scilly now September’s here! I’ve only been to the Isles of Scilly once, as a child, on a day trip on the Scillonian from Penzance, and around Easter time. It must be time to go back! It’s a pity they are so far away – but if they weren’t out west,…