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Book Reviews

Birdwatchers Yearbook 2010
The Birdwatcher's Yearbook 2010
Publisher: Buckingham Press Ltd (Tel 01733 561739)
Editor: David Cromack
Price: £17.50
Dateline: Wednesday 10 December 2009

Can you remember what you were doing 30 years ago? Thought not. Let me jog memories. In November 1980 Jim Callaghan was stepping down as leader of the Labour Party having been swept aside by Margaret Thatcher. America had just elected B movie actor Ronald Reagan president, Blondie topped the UK charts with The Tide is High and Charlton Athletic won five of their six Third Division matches that month. Manager Mike Bailey bought champagne for his entire squad - at a cost of £24.
More significant even than these momentous events was the birth of a book that has become an ornithological standard.


The Birdwatcher's Yearbook went on sale with founder John Pemberton promising: "It has been launched with the object of providing a comprehensive and convenient work of reference for all sections of the birdwatching community."

Many years, pages and changes of ownership later the Yearbook still adheres to that principle after becoming firmly established as the birdwatcher's bible.

The 2010 birthday edition boasts a thorough review of the latest birdwatching technological aids and a guide to top birding websites. There's a report on 40 years of the Hawk and Owl Trust, a feature on the best 2009 bird books and a roundup of the most significant bird news of the last 12 months including confirmation of the first fledging of Great Bustard chicks in Britain since 1832.

There are all the usual features too; a guide to more than 400 nature reserves includes 11 in Kent, tide table information, birding events diary and directories of lecturers, artists, photographers, publishers and trade outlets, contact details for county and international bird organisations, bird hospitals and, well ... if it's not within the book's 352 pages it's probably not worth knowing about.

Personally, I'd like to see the excellent bird notes diary and bird, butterfly and dragonfly log charts presented as a pull out. Keeping the whole book each year to retain sightings records takes up too much bookshelf space!

Happy birthday BY!

Eric Brown

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Wildlife of Britain
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley in conjunction with RSPB
Author: Various contributors
Editor: Miezan van Zyl
Price: £14.99
Dateline: Thursday 20 August 2009

Late July and August are the months that pose problems for birdwatchers. It's generally a quiet time before migration develops from a trickle to a late September rush. So what to do, where to go and what to look for are the questions to be considered. Many birdwatchers turn to butterflies while others seek moths, dragonflies or bats. The true naturalist will be looking for them all.

If you are not quite as confident with butterflies, bats, moths or dragonflies as you are with birds you will need a guide to help with identification. Taking a guide on each species into the field might help develop muscles like an olympic weightlifter but would severely hamper use of optical equipment and might leave you requiring hospital treatment for a bad back.

Luckily a practical solution is available from those clever people at Dorling Kindersley who have published a small, portable guide which includes all the above – and more! Wildlife of Britain packs the best of our wildlife between two covers with subject matter gleaned from eight separate Pocket Nature guides. Stuffed onto 600 fact-filled pages are profiles and pictures of over 1,000 British plants, fungi, insects and animals.

I struggled to find anything unsatisfactory but if I was being really picky I’d complain about the tiny print size which could be difficult to read on field trips in less than perfect light. But editor Miezan van Zyl has done a brilliant job squeezing so much into a single volume that remains truly portable. Under the headings: trees, wild flowers and plants, fungi and lichen, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, fish and invertebrates, the best of British nature can be packed in a pocket or a glovebox.

Concise textual description accompanies a photograph of each species. Arrows indicate important ID features, there are (very small) habitat pictures and distribution maps, and in mammals the tracks and droppings are illustrated too. Information panels list important details.

A small book of huge value.

Eric Brown

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Where to Go Wild
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley/RSPB
Senior editor: Paula Regan
Price: £25
Dateline: Saturday 30 May 2009

There is something pretty special about Dungeness. Shingle crunches constantly beneath your feet in a pebble strewn wilderness dotted with gorse bushes, crashing waves send spray and spume far inland on wind that brings tears bursting from blurry eyes and furious gulls scream aggressively overhead.

Dungeness might have been designed for conspiracy theorists who insist The Eagle never really landed at Tranquility Base but was instead filmed on a US desert set just like this.

Yet the lunar landscape has two power stations, two lighthouses and a railway station, a bird observatory, a fishing industry and a thriving community of writers and artists based in an assortment of huts. TV producers love it and "Dunge" has appeared in many programmes from documentaries to whodunits.

Dungeness, on the edge of Romney Marshes, is also among Britain’s prime wildlife sites. As one of the world’s largest shingle landscapes it is classified a desert by Natural England and its flora and fauna make it a magnet for botanists and birdwatchers.It is among the venues given star treatment in this coffee-table book of top British wildlife sites which highlights a different spot each month. Dungeness issaid to be home for over 60 bird species and 600 plant types. Specialities like medicinal leech, great crested newt, wild carrot, viper’s bugloss, the Nottingham catchfly and sea kale are pictured while the brown carder bee and Sussex emerald moth can also be found. However, text is scanty and little space devoted to unusual migrant birds who first make landfall on the Dungeness promontory.

Small maps are next to useless but textual directions to hotspots are fairly exhaustive and there are telephone numbers listed where extra information can be obtained. A more comprehensive list of species to be found at each site would have been useful but if, for example, you are seeking a red squirrel hotspot the book comes up trumps with six different venues.

Other Kent sites chosen as main features include Elmley Marshes for December, Wye Downs (June) and Northward Hill (March). Each double page spread includes details of other prime wildlife sites nearby. Magnificent photgraphs are the highlight of a heavyweight tome unlikely to be taken into the field by wildlife enthusiasts but which could prove a handy reference tool for birdwatchers in conjunction with a "Where to watch..." guide.

Eric Brown

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Wildlife of Britain
By Various Contributors
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley/RSPB
Price: £30.00
Dateline: 17 April 2009

Publishers Dorling Kindersley collaborated with the RSPB to produce a sumptuous 500-page, coffee table giant ideal for children to learn about our wildlife wonders or for adults to browse. Readers of any age will be thrilled by over 1,400 dazzling photographs like the double page spread of an emperor dragonfly, woodland bluebells or the stately otter. There is a discovery to be made on every page.

Contrasting British habitats like mountains, freshwater, coast and woodland are examined in detail then the book concentrates on species profiles sub-divided into sections about mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, fish, invertebrates, plants and fungi contributed by more than a dozen experts.

Rob Hume, editor of Birds magazine, leads a distinguished team contributing the ornithological information which also includes Jonathan Elphick and John Woodward. A section of over 60 large format pages includes profiles and magnificent colour photographs of most British species.

All of our wildlife, both familiar and less familiar, is here in an easily read or browsed presentation certain to awaken or satisfy interest in British flora and fauna.

Not a field guide, this massive tome is ideal for "dipping" into at any time and can only be kept on the strongest coffee table or bookshelf!

Eric Brown

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The RSPB Pocket Birds of Britain and Europe
By Jonathan Elphick and John Woodward

Publisher: Dorling Kindersley
Price: £8.99
Dateline: March 2009

While the birding world excitedly awaits a new edition of the highly-regarded Collins Bird Guide, an excellent field guide for the less experienced has appeared.

The RSPB Pocket Birds of Britain and Europe has been updated and revised after its introduction in 2003 and this midget publication is really impressive.

Even when the subject bird is confined to half a page there are still four or five pictures including flight, male/female and juvenile illustrations, arrows highlighting identification features, a small panel listing voice characteristics, habitat, food targets and similar species. There’s also a distribution map, a photograph of the bird in natural surroundings and about 60 words of descriptive text. The designers tuck all this onto half a page without ugly congestion. A laminated cover with extended flaps allows any page to be marked and stops them flapping and tearing in the wind – an important field asset.

Compare this book with A&C Black’s Nature Guide Birds of Britain and Europe. The Black’s Guide is compact and portable and a reasonable price but The RSPB Guide outscores it on these points.

The Black’s Guide is thicker at 256 pages to 224 and has more species at 360 to 320. But RSPB Pocket Birds is a pound cheaper and considerably lighter to carry.

In the quest for maximum portability in the field, Kent regulars like red-crested pochard and yellow-browed warbler are omitted yet there are plenty of overseas specialities to make the book an essential item on European trips. Undoubtedly one of the best value, pound for pound beginners' guides.

Eric Brown

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Birds
By Dominic Couzens
Publisher: Collins
 

Kingfishers are among our most colourful birds and a sighting of this "blue streak rocket" always brings excitement to a riverside walk. It’s likely to be a brief glimpse of bright blue and orange as the bird hurtles past perhaps giving a shrill warning call.

I always thought kingfishers ate fish exclusively but the author of this book reveals they sometimes try a different menu. Apparently, kingfishers have been noted feeding on frogs and molluscs. In summer butterflies are taken on the wing.

Author Dominic Couzens reveals stacks of tantalising titbits like this in a 336-page voyage of discovery through the avian world. He lifts the feathers and gets under the skin of birds to disclose their intimate secrets. Kingfishers’ nest chambers, sited in riverbanks, have an opening wide enough for only one bird but there are often six youngsters so how do they feed?

Mr Couzens has the answer. When a parent approaches, the chick nearest the entrance hole receives the fish. Then it shuffles into the gloom to its right, pushing its siblings round in a circle so the next in line is nearest the entrance ready for the next feed; a sort of kingfisher carousel.

Starlings, reveals Mr Couzens, not only mimic telephone ringtones, crying babies and doorbells, they also ape other birds’ behaviour. Just like the cuckoo, the garrulous, black and white spotted lawn scourer lays eggs in other birds’ nests to save energy raising lots of young. To avoid the "host" starling becoming suspicious, the invader will eat or remove one of the original eggs to even up the numbers.

Birds is not a field guide but a heavyweight volume crammed with fascinating facts and magnificent photographs assembled by picture editor Dave Cottridge.

ERIC BROWN

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Yearbook much more than a diary

The Birdwatcher’s Yearbook is much more than just a diary – it’s an indispensible compendium crammed full of useful information.

Regular features include a guide to 400 UK bird and nature reserves, a survey of useful birding websites, a roundup of the latest worldwide ornithological discoveries, tide tables and directories of artists, photographers, lecturers and trading outlets for birdwatchers.

There seems to be a nugget on every one of its 350 or so pages. Want to arrange a binocular repair? See contact numbers for dealers. Want to keep tabs on natural history titles due for publication? Find them listed under their publishers. Need to look up the phone number of a county bird recorder or contact the Cley Bird Club? Details here.

Perhaps the key features are the Log Charts and checklist of British Birds where you can tick off each species seen each month. There’s another for butterflies and a separate one for dragonflies.

The 2009 edition includes a fascinating account of bird ringing which celebrates its century this year. Jacquie Clark of the British Trust for Ornithology reviews the milestones already achieved and speculates on what might happen in the next century.

Ringing – catching birds and fixing a numbered, metal leg ring – is carried out by a dedicated band of skilled and licensed people who have contributed hugely to our knowledge of birds, particularly their migration patterns.

Early naturalists believed swallows burrowed into mud to hibernate for the winter because the birds they had seen swooping over reedbeds one autumn day had disappeared the next. Ringing revealed the truth. A swallow ringed at the nest in Staffordshire in 1911 by poet John Masefield’s brother was reported in Natal in December 1913, confirming that English swallows head south to winter in Africa.

*The Birdwatcher’s Yearbook costs £17.50 and can be obtained from publishers Buckingham Press 01733 561 739 or www.birdsillustrated.com

Eric Brown

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Collins Need to Know - Birdwatching
By Rob Hume
Publisher: HarperCollins

More years ago than I care to remember I made my first expedition to Elmley RSPB reserve.

In my blissful ignorance I drove all the way down the footpath to the reserve and when I got there I couldn't believe people had come from places like Reading, Luton and even Birmingham to see something called a pectoral sandpiper.

I shared a hide with birdwatchers who stared and stared and stared. Not at the bird - at me.

For I could hardly have been more conspicuous. Well, not unless I had been wearing a pin striped suit, or nothing at all.

My birdwatching gear consisted of a bright red rainjacket with white and black trim, white shirt, ice blue jeans and white trainers.

I might as well have been wearing a set of flashing traffic lights on my head.

Sadly, I knew no better. If only this book had been around at the time I would surely have read it and avoided a colour gaffe likely to warn birds of my approach at half a mile range.

Rob Hume advises on correct birding gear including optics. There are tips on field guides , photography, record keeping, feeding, nestboxes, where to watch birds and how to identify them.

In short, everything the fledgling birdwatcher could want to know about a new hobby.

An invaluable read for the budding birder with only one notable omission. There's no warning how engrossing birdwatching can become.

Eric Brown

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BIRD IDENTIFICATION AND FIELDCRAFT
By Mark Ward
Publisher: New Holland in association with The Wildlife Trusts

Mark Ward is well known to birdwatchers for his interesting magazine articles packed with practical advice. Here he has gathered many of those useful tips together in a book which will appeal to enthusiasts right across the board. Beginners will lap it up and even the most experienced birders can learn a bit extra to squeeze just a little more from their hobby.

I particularly enjoyed the section headed "Sneaky Tricks" where the author describes bringing in a barred warbler by pishing.

He has attracted laughing, ring billed, Iceland and Med gulls simply by taking a loaf of bread out into the field with him and lured a lesser spotted woodpecker by drumming on a tree trunk with a stick.

Tips like how to distinguish honey from common buzzard are shoehorned into every chapter and backed up by some stunning illustrations. The fieldcraft section shows how to develop an awareness of birds and the habitats they frequent as well as how to get closer without disturbing the target.

Reading this book will enable you to hone your skills and become a better birdwatcher.

Eric Brown

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BIRDS BRITANNICA
By Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey
Publisher: Chatto and Windus
   

A sumptuous publication eight years in the making will delight everyone with an interest in birds from the nervous beginner to the most committed twitcher. It is neither an identification guide nor a behavioural study although both aspects are covered.

Much of this huge 518-page tome is devoted to anecdotes on some 350 species supplied by members of the public responding to an appeal from the authors. Facts, myths, history and folklore on each bird are presented in a highly readable, encyclopaedia-style fashion.

Every possible bird-related topic is included: migration, bird art, birdsong, birds in music, rare facts, bird literature among them,

all extensively illustrated by world renowned bird photographer Chris Gomersall. It describes the interaction of birds and humans, concentrating on cultural links and social history.

For example, in the species biographies under Dartford Warbler we learn this bird was actually discovered and shot on Bexley Heath and subsequently named by one John Latham in 1773. Which begs the question why wasn’t it called the Bexleyheath Warbler? The old country name was "furze wren" and it was once frequent on Wimbledon Common, Blackheath and at Wormwood Scrubs.

Leading conservationists raised question marks over its future in the 1970s but it has now flourished to around 2,000 pairs.

For anoraks there are plenty of lists to provide or answer quiz questions galore. Pubs with bird names, biographies of leading ornithologists and even bird names in Welsh!

If you buy only one bird book as a Christmas or birthday present this must be it. You can pick it up and dip into it anytime, anywhere.

One tip though. The cover price is £35 but you can obtain Birds Britannica at least £10 cheaper by shopping around High Street bookshops. Go and get it.

Eric Brown

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THE GARDEN BIRD YEAR
By Roy Beddard
Publisher: New Holland in association with The Wildlife Trusts

Roy is a former RSPB Local Group Leader and obviously also a brave author unafraid to confront burning issues affecting garden birds.

In a chapter on Predators and Pests in the garden Roy singles out the domestic cat as their most significant predator. Risking the wrath of the cat protection lobby, his bald statistics lay much of the blame for bird casualties firmly at the door (or should that be flap) of pet cats.

There are over seven million domestic cats in the UK, he says, and up to one in three of them lives in a wild or feral state. These assassins kill between 30 and 75 million birds every year, claims Mr Beddard.

He suggests various ways of reducing the problem. Cats should be neutered to reduce the feral population, the chief culprits of this huge and indiscriminate slaughter. Cats should always be well fed and kept in at early morning and dusk when birds feed. A bell should be placed on a collar around the cat’s neck so birds can hear an approach.

Planting prickly hedges and shrubs around the borders of your garden will help keep cats out – or in. Of course owning a cat – or a dog – of your own will also be a powerful deterrent.

This is just one aspect of garden birdwatching uppermost in the mind of anyone who has seen the tail of a luckless bird vanishing into a cat’s mouth. But others are considered thoroughly in a publication which above all shows how gardening and birdwatching can be combined without conflict.

Eric Brown

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THE ULTIMATE BIRDFEEDER HANDBOOK
By John A Burton
Publisher: New Holland
 

Whether you simply throw breadcrumbs on the lawn or spend a small fortune on seeds and peanuts this book will inform you how to attract garden birds by improving your feeding methods.

It might disillusion you, too. If you have been forking out for mixed seeds Mr Burton recommends you stop right now.

He says research has shown this is one of the most wasteful methods of feeding. Apparently birds on feeders extract and discard the seeds they don’t like to get at their favourites. Instead he recommends several different feeders, each filled with a single type of seed or grain to avoid this waste.

But which foods to concentrate on?

This is one of the very few books available with a detailed analysis of bird foods. Sunflower seeds, for example, are nutritious. The kernels are 50% fat, 19% carbohydrate, 23% protein and 3% sugars. Sunflower seeds will be taken by tits, woodpeckers, nuthatches and finches who can deal with them in their shells, while robins and dunnocks can eat the hearts. The flowers are very attractive to insects.

Of course there is no better way to feed birds than planting the trees, shrubs and flowers that provide natural food. A whole chapter is devoted to this with ideas for planting a wildlife garden.

The controversial question of whether to feed in the breeding season is answered along with how best to tackle less welcome garden visitors like cats, rats, squirrels and magpies.

There is also advice on which feeders to use, provision of water and storage and hygiene.

This is an invaluable guide lavishly illustrated by the colour photographs of Steve Young.

Eric Brown

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NICK BAKER’S BRITISH WILDLIFE
By Nick Baker
Publisher: New Holland, in association with The Wildlife Trusts
 

Television presenter Nick takes his readers on a colourful tour of British wildlife through the seasons.

While out birdwatching we have all wondered which animal left those teeth marks in hazelnuts or if it was a badger responsible for the footprints we can see.

This book provides the answers….and much more.

Birds are, of course, well catered for but there are stunning insights on other wildlife, too: how to investigate rock pools, advice on optical equipment, where to see Britain’s best daffodil displays in March, how to capture minnows and the use of a "batterpult" to attract bats are among thousands of wildlife tips included in this gripping book.

If you ever wondered how Victorians attracted the Purple Emperor butterfly down from woodland rafters to grace their collections the answer’s here. (Would you believe they used a putrefying rabbit, urine or dog and fox faeces? Butterfly collecting must have been a messy business in those days!)

There’s advice on how to attract Oak Bush Crickets, tawny owls and robins and you can learn how to collect wildlife footprints.

Badgers are among my favourite mammals so I lapped up the section on how to see these secretive creatures.

The author’s practical advice includes where and how to watch different wildlife each month, from goldfinches to fungi, from newts to moths, from dragonfly nymphs to crabs, from red deer to water voles.

Many of these animals are vital to birds. Nick Baker’s thoughtful and practical ideas will allow us all to understand and appreciate them – perhaps to see them, too.

Eric Brown

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COMPLETE BACK GARDEN BIRDWATCHER
By Dominic Cozens
Publisher: New Holland
 

Two pieces of advice are vital for anyone who studies birds from their kitchen window. First, keep a pair of binoculars handy so you are ready to take a closer look at any interesting birds that turn up. Second, buy and digest a book like the one Dominic Cozens has put together to get much more from your garden birdwatching.

There are the obligatory chapters on bird identification and feeding but the book is written from a birdwatcher’s point of view rather than for a person dedicated to wild bird husbandry. It will help the reader understand garden birds and why they do what they do.

There are chapters devoted to the birds you might see, their characteristics and behaviour, a month-by-month calendar of garden bird activity, the requirements of garden birds and how you can satisfy them and a final thought on controversial garden issues like cats and magpies.

Some of the birds included in the "biographies" section seem slightly weird selections as potential garden species.

Brambling, willow tit, tree sparrow and reed bunting would be fabulous sightings but the author admits in his introduction to being generous in his choice of likely garden visitors. And we all know from experience that anything can turn up anywhere!

The book is packed with Steve Young’s top quality colour photographs and includes information panels on what to look and listen for.

You can get children involved, too. The author even suggests a game where points can be awarded for different flight aspects of the collared dove and woodpigeon.

An interesting and informative read destined for many a conservatory table.

Eric Brown

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THE BIRDWATCHER'S COMPANION
By Malcolm Tait
Publisher: Robson Books 

There are several claimants to this title. How about binoculars? Flask? Floppy hat?

If you think that's silly take a skim through this little book of ornithological pot-pourri.

Strictly for those with a sense of humour, its 157 pages are packed with offbeat snippets from the whacky world of birdwatching.

It's full of excruciating puns. There's a football team list of birds including Bobby Moorhen and Jimmy Grebes-get the picture?

This highly entertaining volume is guaranteed to bring a smile even to the lips of the poor unfortunate who has just dipped out on a lifer.

But you can open at any page and serious if slightly obscure facts tumble out. The maximum wingspan of the tufted duck (73cm), the national bird of Turkey(redwing), 17 species yet to be recognised by the British Ornithologists Union as occurring here in a natural state, how to pronounce tricky bird names (poe-shud for pochard), the bird most mentioned by Shakespeare and the bird with the biggest population decline in Britain between 1970 and 2001.

You will have to buy the book to discover all the answers.

There are extracts from Shakespeare, Gilbert White, Chaucer and DH Lawrence, quizzes and even parrot jokes!

Why is the Kiwi flightless? Find out on page 53. The average depth of a great spotted woodpeckers nest in centimetres? No problem. Its on page 28. The number of Test matches umpired by Dickie Bird (think about it)? The answer's on page 66.

All these and hundreds of other facts you probably didn't know you want to know are wedged in between the covers of The Birdwatcher's Companion.

Even the most serious birder should consider it a library essential alongside the fieldguides, monographs and where to watch series.

It is difficult to think of a more relaxing volume after a hard day in the field. When you are still simmering because your friend yelled "there's a triple winged, buff-breasted, great crested gulltit over there by that tree" and it had gone by the time you separated THE tree from 1,000 others, THIS is the book you should wind down with before going off to sleep.

Eric Brown

SPECIAL OFFER for members of the Bexley RSPB
Buy your copy for the special price of £8.99 plus FREE p&p

TO ORDER CALL 0870 787 1613 and quote ref. CH310

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Garden Bird Behaviour
By Robert Burton
Publisher: New Holland

Prolific Robert Burton has written more than 30 books on wildlife and his name will be familiar to readers of The Daily Telegraph through his regular column for that newspaper. His latest offering will appeal to anyone who puts food or water out in the garden for birds and then sits back to watch their antics through the patio window.

He explains why your fluffy garden visitors do the things they do, getting to the bottom of some behaviour which may have puzzled casual birdwatchers. Among the subjects tackled are courtship, singing, nesting, flying, feeding and migration.

I especially enjoyed some of the factboxes. One lists the amount of weeks each species takes to progress from fledging to independence with Tawny Owl the longest (12 weeks) and Swift the quickest (less than one week). How birds choose a mate, why birds are aggressive towards each other and the reason for flocking are among other topics discussed.

The bird world baddie, the Magpie, merits a small chapter of its own. Mr Burton describes the Magpie as "the most hated bird in the country" and goes on to explain how humans have made a considerable contribution to its tainted reputation.

Written in a highly entertaining and easy to absorb style, this lavishly illustrated book lifts the curtain on the great mystery play being enacted in your garden.

It is guaranteed to educate and make you think.

Eric Brown

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