Hi. This is Daniel Bastaja posting for Wed. Mar. 26th, 2003. I would
like to comment on the European Field Guides. I have both versions
(field guide and large hardcover edition) of the 1998
Mullarney,Svensson,Zetterstrom and Grant "Birds of Europe", published by
Collins. Like Peter said, the guide has been very well reviewed and some
have said that it is the best field guide ever published. Yet one of the
first times I used the book, I found what I consider to be a rather
serious shortcoming.

In the field guide gull section, I noticed that the underside of the
wingtip pattern is not shown clearly, or sometimes not shown at all, in
a lot of the larger gull species. As gull identification is difficult,
and sometimes depends on subtleties of colour and pattern, and the large
gulls are being constantly re-formed into new races, sub-species and
species, this to me is a grevious omission. I noticed the problem
recently on a trip to Holland. I was in the port of Rotterdam, looking
at Lesser Black-backed Gulls. I saw several adults that I believed to be
the very dark Baltic race (which looks dramatically different than the
paler western European race) but I wasn't absolutely sure because the
mantle colour wasn't quite as black as it shows for that race in the
field guide. As well, the guide indicated that this dark race should be
normally seen much further east than where I was. I carefully noted the
mantle and wingtip colour and pattern and also noted the pattern on the
underside of the wing. I was very disappointed when I looked in the
guide and saw that the underside of the wing for the Baltic race was not
shown at all. Considering that the topside of the bird looks so much
different from the topside of the paler race, I was amazed that they
wouldn't compare the wingtips from below. The underside of the wing is
shown on the pale race but only in a tiny, tiny illustration in the
corner of the page comparing the bird in flight to a Herring Gull. This
illustration is wholly inadequate for looking at detail or subtleties.

Another comment I can make. The version of this guide that has a black
cover with a picture of a Barn Owl on it is a very big, hard cover book,
wholly unsuitable for use as a field guide. I mention this because many
of the internet sites that sell this book (eg: ABA Sales) DO NOT make
that clear. They sometimes refer to the book as "large format" but, to
me, that is not clear. What does that mean? Does it mean the
illustrations are larger than in a normal field guide? Does it mean it's
somewhat larger than a typical field guide, in the same format as say,
the Smithsonian Handbook field guide series? The book is very expensive
and I'm sure some people (like me) bought it thinking they were buying a
field guide only to discover that they bought a massive hard cover book
that is utterly useless for the field.

Regards,
Daniel S. Bastaja
e-mail: dan at calivita.com


-----Original Message-----
From: petermciver [mailto:petermciver at hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 6:56 AM
To: wkbirds at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [wkbirds] Re: Field Guides for Britain

--- In wkbirds at yahoogroups.com, "sharonlelliott <lelliott at t...>"
<lelliott at t...> wrote:
> We are planning a trip to England and are asking if anyone knows
the
> name and author of a good paperback field guide for that area.
> Please let me
> know. Thanks.
Hi,
I have been away for a few weeks so I hope the following is in time
to be useful.
I possess several field guides for European birds of which my
favorites are the 1995 Collins Birds of Britain and Europe by
Heinzel,Fitter and Parslow and Lars Jonsson's "Birds of Europe",both
very fine books.The 1998 Mullarney,Svensson,Zetterstrom and
Grant "Birds of Europe",of which there are ,I believe 2 Editions,one
also published by Collins,has been very well reviewed and referred to
as the best field guide ever published-this is the one I would
buy,although I have not seen a copy.The Peterson guide,published
first many years ago, set the standard for field guides in Europe but
does not contain the range of illustrations of the previously
mentioned books,which are available through the LA Audobon Society
Bookstore,Amazon and probably Indigo/Chapters/Coles
Regards,
Peter





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