Collins Bird Guide

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nomic status of many taxa formerly regarded as subspecies. which were a bit crammed in the previous edition (pigeons Browse through the beautiful illustrations by Killian Mullarney and Dan Zetterström, and read the detailed text by Lars Svensson. L. S. is indebted to Jose Luis Copete, Andrew Lassey and gestions and/or provision of very useful photographic mate-

number of species formerly regarded as polytypic, compris- been given the opportunity to afford them more adequate Each species account opens with the size of the bird, ex- moult in the spring of 3rd calendar-year. Where to next for the Collins Bird Guide? Avian taxonomy will continue to change and new identification criteria will be defined, and already there are obvious problems this guide will be expected to solve in any future edition. The artwork for crossbills remains unchanged, for example, and the text has not been sufficiently revised to reflect the wide variation in subspecies, plumages and voice that may potentially lead to new crossbill species being described in future (see Birdwatch 211: 30-35 for more on this).

edition remains, and readers are referred to this for a full list. Michael Davis, Paul Doherty, Annika Forsten, Magnus The ultimate reference book for bird enthusiasts – now in its third edition. With expanded text and additional colour illustrations, the 3rd edition of the hugely successful Collins Bird Guide is a must for every birdwatcher. The book provides all the information needed to identify any species at any time of the year, covering size, habitat, range, identification and voice.

There are other quirks, too. Persian and Kurdish Wheatears have been split, but Persian Wheatear Oenanthe xanthoprymna in the first edition has confusingly become Persian Wheatear O chrysopygia in the second, with O xanthoprymna now reserved for Kurdish Wheatear. A name change too far is Isabelline Warbler for Hippolais opaca; if you are going to split Olivaceous Warbler, why ignore the widely used Western Olivaceous Warbler for this form? I could find next to nothing that I didn’t like about the app; the main issue I discovered was that the species comparisons are evidently optimised for viewing on the larger screen of an iPad. On my iPhone 5s, the presented information appears very small for some species comparisons (Arctic, Common and Whiskered Terns for example), with the text unreadable when they are presented directly together in this way – something that would be curable with the introduction of pinching in a future version. Another minor (and slightly pedantic) point is that there are the odd snippets of out-of-date information in the text, and some of the British status codes are a little wayward – though these are problems stemming from the original text, rather than a fault of the app itself. Here we wou ld like to mention particularly those who have Hellstrom, Paul Holt, Hans Larsson, Antero Lindholm,Pearson, George Sangster, Jevgeni Shergalin and Mike RudyO ffere.ins and especially Visa Rauste, is greatlya ppreci- series of well-prepared skins and in some cases from freshly (ad. sum. or ad. s.) and adult winter (ad. wint. or ad.w.). The new illustrations are, as you'd expect given the calibre of the authors, superb. From the perspective of the British birder, updates to some of the terns, swifts, Old World flycatchers and finches are among the most relevant. Among my favourites were the updated harriers and redstarts, while the distinguishing of Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll is also welcome.

species, a size range is always given instead of a single aver- subadu!t (subad. ) - nearly adult, not quite in definitive The scientific name of a species is wntten tn Latm (or 111 4 Scarce or local (estimated> 100 pairs) has been kept to a minimum. Af ew technical terms, however, calendar-year from 1 Jan until next 31 Dec, etc. A number of plates have been improved or completely repainted, including the North American passerines, illustrated by Larry McQueen in the first edition in a style that clashed strongly with that of the main artists. Killian Mullarney has reworked and expanded the two spreads to include Yellow Warbler and Northern Waterthrush, and you can easily imagine that the inspiration for these figures may have come from the windswept slopes of a certain Irish island one recent autumn!

English names nowadays exist both in short form for every- *** Only one or a very few records per decade.