Book Review

Abstract

IbisVolume 164, Issue 1 p. 354-362 Book reviewFree Access Book Review First published: 25 November 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13026AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat The titles reviewed in this section of Ibis are available for reference at the Alexander Library of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, c/o Sherardian Library, Plant Sciences Dept, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, UK. Please write, telephone +44 (0)1 865 271143 or email sophie.wilcox@bodleian.ox.ac.uk prior to your visit to make an appointment. The aim of the Alexander Library is to build up a comprehensive collection of literature as a service to ornithologists. Its holdings include an extensive range of periodicals and a large number of reprints drawn from many sources: additional reprints of readers’ papers are always welcome. The library has always greatly benefitted from its close relationship with the BOU. For many years, all journals received in exchange for Ibis have been deposited in the library, as have most of the books sent for review, through the generosity of reviewers and publishers. In return, as a service to readers, this review section of Ibis is organized and edited by Dr Richard Sale (zool0964@ox.ac.uk) with the help of a panel of contributors. We are always grateful for offers of further assistance with reviewing, especially with foreign-language titles. Books for review: publishers are kindly asked to send two copies of each title to Richard Sale, IBIS Book Reviews, Alexander Library of Ornithology, c/o Sherardian Library, Plant Sciences Dept, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RB, UK. Keller, V., Herrando, S., Voříšek, P., Franch, M., Kipson, M., Milnesi, P., Martí, D., Anton, M., Klvaňová, A., Kalyakin, M.V., Bauer, H.-G. & Foppen, R.P.B. European Breeding Bird Atlas 2. Distribution, Abundance and Change. 967 pages, heavily illustrated with drawings and maps, Barcelona: European Bird Census Council & Lynx Edicions, 2020, hardback, £84.99, ISBN: 9788416728381, www.lynxeds.com, www.ebcc.info This large format (24 × 31 cm) work succeeds The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds (Poyser, 1997), which was based on surveys carried out mainly in the late 1980s, though some were made in the 1990s: the two works are referred to as EBBA1 and EBBA2. The main study period for EBBA2 was 2013–2017, though there is some variation, especially for those regions where cover was more difficult. The area covered includes 48 countries, these including all of eastern Europe, Turkey, Cyprus and the Canary Islands, not all of which were covered completely in EBBA1. A total of some 120,000 fieldworkers contributed data covering a land area of some 11,075,000 km2, plus of course an unmeasured amount of sea used by nesting seabirds. Most of the surveys were based on 50 × 50 km squares. There is an introductory section of some 40 pages, detailing how the data were collected, managed and validated. Importantly, the observed changes in distribution between the two books are examined and interpreted. The main part of the book – just over 800 pages – comprises 556 species accounts. The content includes things such as English and scientific names, an illustration of the species, the names of the artist and the author(s) of the account. Approximately 290 species are given a double-page spread, 195 a single full-page and the remaining species a half-page. A normal double-page spread contains a colour-drawing of the bird, a text of some 500 words containing key references, and three maps. These maps are the synthesis of the data, but should always be read in conjunction with the text, as this provides essential information relating to distribution. Two of the maps cover the whole of the area covered by the Atlas and take up slightly over half a page each (a small number of these may be on a larger scale where the species’ distribution is limited to only a small part of Europe). The first of the two maps is the more straightforward, with a dot in each of the 50 × 50 km2 squares where the species occurs, coloured by abundance (in pairs). The second map comes in two forms. The first shows, for each of the points entered in the first map, the evidence for breeding at that point – ‘confirmed’, ‘probable’, ‘possible’ or ‘not recorded’. The alternative form of the second map is a distribution map shaded by the estimated ‘probability of occurrence’: this map has been derived from modelling a range of data and is on a scale of 10 × 10 km. These two maps, ‘Abundance’ and ‘Breeding evidence’, will be the first port of call for many readers. So, it is with great regret that this reviewer reports that he finds them difficult to read. In the ‘Abundance’ maps the two highest density symbols (for >100,000 pairs and 10,000-99,999 pairs both appear black. Similarly, the symbols for 1000–9999 and 100–999 are both mid-brown and hard to separate. Further, in the ‘Breeding evidence’ maps, ‘Confirmed’ and ‘Probable’ are almost indistinguishable. It seems a great pity, especially given all the work that went into collecting the data, that more effort was not given to this aspect of the maps. There are also some species for which the use of ‘Abundance’ and ‘Breeding evidence’ maps are largely unsuitable. Included among these are the colonial seabirds. For some, such as the Northern Gannet Morus bassanus, the size of most colonies is fairly accurately known, much more accurately than can be determined from the map key. Equally for these, the ‘Breeding evidence’ map is unnecessary: who is going to sit in the middle of a busy colony of Atlantic Puffins Fratercula arctica or at night in a noisy colony of European Storm-petrels Hydrobates pelagicus and not enter ‘Confirmed’ until they have actually found an egg? Unsurprisingly, almost all the UK entries are recorded as ‘Confirmed’, making the maps redundant. The third map, based on the 50 × 50 km2, is small and shows changes between EBBA1 and EBBA2 with different colours for unchanged ranges, those occupied in EBBA1 but not in EBBA2, and the reverse. It thus provides a very quick reference to population changes and in contrast to the other two maps is easily read. There are three appendices. The first covers – much more briefly and without maps – Rare native species recorded during EBBA2 (21 species), Native species recorded or mentioned in EBBA1, but not recorded in EBBA2 (six species) and Rare non-native species recorded during EBBA2 (41 species). Appendix 2 is a species list with a useful set of summary statistics for all species. Appendix 3 lists the country codes and acronyms of all the countries. The book ends with almost 50 pages of key references and an Index. EBBA2 has followed EBBA1 in using the HBW-Birdlife checklist for the English names and thus we shall have to get used to some curious English names such as Common Murre Uria aalge and Lapland Longspur Calcarius lapponicus. With respect to illustrations of the birds, EBBA2 has departed from EBBA1 which used a colour photograph of each species, by using a new colour painting. Contributed by 46 different artists, these differ considerably in style. Given that, collectively, they take up some 100 pages of an expensive book, one might question the need for them. This huge book is the result of an equally huge undertaking by a huge number of people. It will provide the key reference material on the status and distribution of European species for many years. Because changes are occurring ever more rapidly, it is to be hoped that plans for EBBA3 are already being made. And hopefully better ways of presenting the data will be found, perhaps digitally rather than in print? Christopher Perrins Johnson, E.I. & Wolfe, J.D. Molt in Neotropical Birds: Life History and Aging Criteria. 400 pages, numerous coloured photographs together with coloured figures and histograms, Boca Raton: CRC Press (Taylor and Francis Group), Studies in Avian Biology, Vol. 51, American Ornithological Society, 2021, paperback, £42.99 (NHBS), ISBN: 9780367657635. This is a paperback edition of a hardback produced in 2017 or 2018 (both dates are quoted on the original) which is still available (at £170.00, NHBS). Undoubtedly, our knowledge of the biology of tropical species falls way behind that for northern temperate species. Therefore, the two authors are to be applauded for synthesizing 35 years of data collected from 186 non-passerine and passerine Central Amazonian bird species at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project near Manaus, Brazil. Data on biometrics, hints on species identification, the sequence of moults, the progress of skull ossification, ageing and sexing characteristics are presented in detail and illustrated with numerous colour photographs. Particularly valuable are the histograms presenting the monthly occurrence of birds in moult by age class, as well as the proportion of birds with a brood patch. Each of the 37 family chapters, from the tinamous Tinamidae to the wood-warblers Parulidae, starts with a short summary of family-specific characteristics and ends with the relevant literature. Two introductory chapters are highly recommended before using this guide. They introduce not only the North American terminology of moults and plumages, which for those used to European terminology is not intuitive, but also a fairly novel three-letter coding system which designates, in turn, moult cycle, moult status (in active moult or not) and plumage type. This results in 24 different codes which reflect age and plumage – and which definitely need some familiarization. Rightly, this coding system was invented because the ages of tropical species, often breeding over most of the year, are difficult to squeeze into the age codes based on calendar year or short breeding periods as shown by birds in more northern or southern latitudes. Once this hurdle is cleared, the species accounts are easily accessible and well presented. Potentially helpful are the many photos which illustrate most of the sexing and ageing characteristics. Unfortunately, the printing quality is poor for many photos of the smaller species, so that some of the ageing characteristics are hardly recognizable. In addition, in many of the wing photos of smaller species, strong moiré patterns (when the printed pattern of dots interferes with the lines of the feather barbs) appear on the wings and distract from, or even obstruct, the actual coloration. Such moiré effects can only be prevented by the printer by direct supervision of the printing process. That said, for anyone interested in Amazonian species, whether ringer or field observer, this book holds a wealth of information on the plumages of juveniles, males and females and is worth the purchase. Lukas Jenni Cofta, T. Flight Identification of European Passerines and Select Landbirds. 496 pages, copious colour drawings/photos, Princeton: Princeton University Press (WILDGuides), 2021, flexicover, £37.99, ISBN: 9780691177571, press.princeton.edu I declare that I am a fan of the WILDGuides series. They are authoritative, usually superbly written, brilliantly illustrated and very well produced. The title of this new guide will immediately get the field birder's pulse racing; a guide to the all-too-difficult subject of birds in flight, aiming to pin down essential details from sometimes the briefest of glimpses of a bird as it hurtles overhead or dives into cover, never to be seen again. The guide covers 205 European passerine species and some 32 near-passerines (including doves, pigeons, cuckoos, swifts, kingfishers, bee-eaters, woodpeckers, Roller, Hoopoe and Ring-necked Parakeet), the flight of which has been scarcely covered when compared with larger species more often encountered in flight (e.g. seabirds and raptors) where knowledge of the flight of these groups is often necessary for identification – many pelagic seabirds can only be separated on flight views. Passerines are different as for the most part we observe them perched up or hopping around on the ground, but with increased knowledge, in part from improving technology, the salient features needed to identify many species in flight, no matter how small, means that this is now within our reach. But the mystique of ‘flight ID’ has been perpetuated and our lack of understanding can be simply put down to no-one seriously tackling this subject in such detail before. At 496 pages this is a sizeable book. The daunting-ness of the title is, however, immediately overcome by its sumptuousness. Over 2400 colour photographs and 850 colour illustrations do not just simply brighten up the book, but form much of its content. Introduction apart, text is kept brief within the species accounts, with photos and illustrations left to do the talking. The 37-page introduction could be seen as brief for such a complex topic. It covers aspects such as size, structure and shape, coloration, flight, flocking, calls and confusion species, and is illustrated with silhouettes of family representative; some, such as the from-below view, are reproduced to scale, others, such the side-view, are not – which I think is a mistake as having all these to scale would have been more useful. Other silhouette sections focus on specific wing and tail shapes and there is a section on colours used for the illustrations. Next comes a section of flight, and an introduction to the ‘F-wave’ (Flight-wave) concept – that imaginary flight line traced by a bird in the air – be it undulating, level, regular or irregular. Experienced observers are going to understand this immediately, but few will honestly have broken down these different flight styles into so many different groups. This section is then followed by short sections on wing beats and flocks – the latter ending with some useful photos to better illustrate what is being explained in the text. Lastly, a short section on flight calls ends the introduction. That all sounds a lot, and given the brevity of the species accounts, I was left wanting just a little more, either in the introduction or in the accounts themselves. The 237 species covered include some of the more regularly occurring vagrants to western Europe (and maybe to Britain in particular) such as several vagrant pipits and the Siberian/eastern thrushes. Each species account follows a set format with short, succinct text aimed at conveying key details such as size, structure and shape, coloration, flight, flock and calls, as well as whether the species is a diurnal or nocturnal migrant. Many accounts also include a sonogram of the flight call. A small portrait of each species at rest is also provided. The bulk of each account is taken up with illustrations of the species, along with a series of photographs depicting it in flight. Here advancing digital illustration and imaging technology really comes in to its own and it is the presentation of these images which makes the WILDGuides series stand out from other guides. The clean and precise illustrations are on the whole very good, even though many are flat and fail to capture the ‘jizz’ of a species – something I would have thought a key element for a guide trying to convey species movement. Ask any experienced observer about identification of birds in flight, and nearly all will mention jizz – it is so fundamental to in-flight ID. I also cannot help thinking that adding fine ‘pointer lines’ to key in-flight features – be this shape, structure or colour – would have been very helpful to get the finer points of some of the identifications across. Where the author deems flight identification impossible, some species are treated together, for example some of the warblers, although oddly Common and Iberian Chiffchaffs are treated separately, so this is not consistent. The 2400+ photos (of which impressively over a third are from a single photographer, Michal Skakuj) are, I think, an attempt to convey the in-field jizz of each species. These vary from single images to montages in the Crossley guide style and on the whole work well. But as with all photo guides, some species are let down by poor images – presumably because none better were available, as passerines are on the whole hard to photograph in flight and few people attempt them – to the point that some are pointless. For example, many warbler species have at least one very poor image that conveys little. But photos nearly always fail to convey movement and jizz because the bird is frozen and flat. This is where good illustrators come in, as the very best can convey this with a few brush strokes – just look at some of the in-flight vignettes in the Collins Bird Guide – which capture a lot more of the feel of the moving bird than many of the photos in this book do. There are some errors and oddities in the species accounts: the redpolls are all lumped and the ‘Arctic’ Redpoll subspecies illustrated is exilipes but labelled hornemanni; eastern subspecies are used throughout (reflecting the origin of the author), so most of the Long-tailed Tits depicted are northern (white-headed) birds and so not very representative of the many subspecies of the region. The biggest omission however is the lack of the ‘F-wave’ for each species within the individual accounts. This is so well explained in the introduction and on further reading that you cannot help feel that this is the ‘USP’ of the title. So why hasn't the F-wave of each individual species been included in the individual accounts? I admit that some would be the same for similar species and so may appear repetitive, but this is where you want these F-wave diagrams – not 250 pages away so that you have to repeatedly keep turning back. I personally would have prioritized the F-wave diagram over a sonogram and feel this is such a bewildering omission when so much thought and care has been put into other aspects of the book. Nit-picking aside, this is a tremendous book in scope, and by and large is well executed. There will be few who will not learn something from it: for the experienced hunter of rarities on a wind-swept isle it might just solidify what they have begun to notice for themselves, but for the newcomer it will prove fascinating (although I would advise they use it alongside their more familiar field guide). My hope is that others will be able to bring some of this book’s insights into the more popular field guides and bring the F-wave concept to the masses. Steve P. Dudley Taylor, M. The Gull Next Door: a Portrait of a Misunderstood Bird. 192 pages, with b&w illustrations by the author, Princeton: Princeton University Press, hardback, £19.99, ISBN: 9780691208961, press.princeton.edu Gulls polarize. Some see them as glorious and elegant masters of sea and air as in Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and associate them with the pleasures of a sunny seaside holiday. Others vilify gulls as loud-mouthed and boisterous petty thieves intruding on their space. In The Gull Next Door, Marianne Taylor sets out to provide a deeper appreciation of these often maligned birds, and in his foreword David Lindo guarantees that ‘at the end you will have fallen in love with gulls’. Even among people who love watching birds, gulls elicit divergent responses. At one extreme are the larophiles who enjoy spending long days on filthy landfill sites counting the ‘mirrors’ on the flight feathers in order to identify the species of immature individuals for the rare chance to see one of the more unusual gull species. Few bird groups have such fanatical followers. One aim of this book is to bring into closer focus the diversity of gulls that we can encounter in Britain, showing that there is really no such thing as a ‘seagull’. The book beautifully exemplifies the diversity of the lifestyles of the many different gull species, some making their living far away from the sea. The natural histories of the species are told accurately, in the main, and in wonderful prose. The species are further brought to life by the author's beautiful sketches, and are described with such clarity that at times one may wonder why they should be so fiendishly difficult to identify. Woven into the description are interesting facts on the population history of the species in Britain, from the Mediterranean Gull being a sign of the time, increasing its breeding numbers since its first breeding attempt in 1968 and the only confirmed record of a Great Black-headed Gull shot in 1859 (‘what is hit is history, what is missed is mystery’). The main theme of this book is the relationship between humans and gulls: how humans affect gulls and how gulls affect humans, with both sides getting fair attention. In folklore, literature, film and lyrics they are mostly portrayed as noisy, rude and unintelligent, but some depict them as heroes and several coastal nations consider them as the spiritual vessels of dead sailors and so would never kill a gull. Our countryside is changing, and gulls adjust to these changes. They are good at finding new ways: they are one of the best birds in terms of innovations, members of the avian clever club. The public attitude toward gulls has also changed and in several places there have been calls for culling. What did gulls do to get on the wrong side of the public? Their habits of swiping food out of the hands of unsuspecting people and their unsavoury inability swiftly and humanely to kill prey, some of which are viewed as far cuter than gulls by the watching public, has not helped their popularity. As Taylor explains, however, the gulls are just showing innovation and behavioural flexibility to take advantage of alternative food sources where the supply of natural food has declined, mainly by human activities. And it is exactly this part of our relationship with gulls that Marianne Taylor is trying to put right. ‘Scroungers cannot be choosers', as Taylor writes: gulls following people into towns is pretty much their last-ditch survival attempt to persist in a human-altered world. Exactly the adaptive behaviours that allow gulls to survive in a changing world paradoxically now put them in conflict with humans: they make themselves noticed and get punished for that. The book reminds us that Planet Earth is not only our home and we need to learn to share it with others, showing compassion, even to gulls. The book ends with several encouraging stories where the public has started to engage more positively with gulls. Will this book contribute to a positive development and will you fall in love with gulls? I am not a good measure of that, as I fell in love with gulls a long time ago, but if any book is to help to improve the public perception of gulls, this is the one! Ruedi Nager Moss, S. The Swallow: A Biography. 196 pages, some colour and b&w drawings, London: Square Peg, 2020, hardback, £12.99, ISBN: 9781529110265, www.penguin.co.uk/company/publishers/vintage/square-peg Stephen Moss's third bird biography is similar in size and format to its predecessors, The Robin and The Wren, but here what he calls the ‘world's best-known and best-loved bird', a sentiment he justifies in the book, does inevitably take him much further afield. The book is part biography, part celebration of what the Swallow has meant to us, including in folklore, a brief history of our understanding of migration and even part travel book when he goes to South Africa in the northern winter to a spectacular roost. He has written the biography season by season, rather than month by month as in his previous two books, which immediately makes it feel appropriately less domestic, more cosmopolitan. He summarizes all the main aspects of the Swallow's life, including its feeding, courtship, breeding and migration, and does not shirk more unpalatable aspects, describing an instance of infanticide that is similar to that of a lion. The Swallow is well-studied, but Moss can only give us a glimpse of, for instance, the significance of the length and symmetry of the tail streamers or how nest position, seasonal weather or nest parasites affect breeding success. The illustrations mainly come from the late 19th and early 20th century and are an attractive addition, though many are quite similar. The absence of references I found frustrating. He quotes from a variety of authors but where do the quotations (e.g. from W.H. Hudson, Mark Cocker, Ted Hughes and many others) actually come from? Stephen Moss is a naturalist and a writer, not an academic biologist, and this book is aimed clearly at the curious naturalist. Moss's love for his subject and care for its life come across strongly. I found it a delightful read and much enjoyed his digressions. For a comprehensive scientific look at the Swallow and a bibliography, one needs to refer, as Moss does, to Angela Turner's The Barn Swallow (Poyser, 2006). Reading this book in February, and during a lockdown, it certainly made me hanker for the first swallows to appear. Andrew Lack Martin, G.R. Bird Senses: How and What Birds See, Hear, Smell, Taste, and Feel. 270 pages, profusely illustrated with colour photographs and figures, Exeter: Pelagic Publishing, 2021, paperback, £24.99, (also available in ePub and pdf versions) ISBN: 9781784272166, pelagicpublishing.com This is a valuable contribution to our understanding of a very complex subject. The author warns of a number of serious potential pitfalls in drawing conclusions about how birds ‘see’ the world. First, and most importantly, we should not fall into the trap of thinking that birds ‘see’ the world in the same way that we do. Secondly, the sense organs of different species of birds differ markedly, so markedly that we generalize at our peril. Examples of this variation can be seen in the visual fields of different species. Even the most basic measurement, the visual field, of most birds is quite different from that of humans. Humans have a large area, about 120°, of binocular vision and smaller areas, about 40° on either side, where only one eye can operate: beyond that, for about 160°, almost half the field, we have no vision. Many birds have much smaller areas of binocular vision, very much larger areas of monocular vision and relatively small blind areas behind the head (good for seeing approaching predators). For example, in the White Stork Ciconia ciconia the blind area is only about 72°, the binocular region some 28° and a massive 260° – almost three-quarters of the visual field – is covered by a single eye. The most extreme example of visual field seems to be found in a few species such as Woodcock Scolopax rusticola where the visual fields of the two eyes extend not only around the whole 360°, but also upwards along the sides of the head until they meet at the top: the visual fields cover the whole of the hemisphere! A further warning against generalization is that very few species of birds have been tested in such a way that we may feel we know what information they receive. For example, visual acuity varies greatly between species, but their responses may vary with a number of aspects such as the environmental conditions. One of these is light – ‘the total range of light levels in which an eye can function varies by a factor of 1011’. As most birds fly and have to make rapid adjustments to their surroundings, it is hardly surprising that vision plays a very important part of most birds' lives. In line with this, this work devotes the first five chapters to vision and a further three to vision in nocturnal and underwater activities of birds. Other chapters are devoted to hearing and smell, touch and taste, in sensing the Earth's magnetic field, and the degree to which birds can sense ultraviolet light. These are inevitably shorter, as less is known. There is also a useful chapter on the problems that man-made structures cause to birds. Several, such as overhead wires, underwater fishing nets, glass windows and fast-moving objects such as planes, cars and the blades of wind-farm turbines, cause huge mortalities in birds. For some birds which spend much of their life airborne, very bright light may impair the clarity of the image, and birds such as the Gyps vultures have developed ‘shields’ which shade the eye to prevent this when they are looking down, as they do much of the time while foraging for food. However, while they are looking down, this shield impairs the view ahead. This is not a problem in nature, as while flying at height the birds have little need to factor in danger from ahead, but it may partially explain the frequency of collisions with power lines. The average ornithologist gives little thought to the issues covered here and so the book makes a valuable contribution to knowledge. I have one concern: there is an earlier book on the same subject by the same author (The Sensory Ecology of Birds, OUP 2017). Inevitably the texts overlap to some extent. One feature which may influence some readers is that this work lacks a bibliography, which is frustrating for those who wish to look further into a subject: in contrast, although slightly more out-of-date, the earlier work contains a 20-page bibliography containing perhaps some 600 references. Christopher Perrins Meiburg, J. A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Bird of Prey. 366 pages, including 50pp of notes and a 12pp bibliography, London: The Bodley Head, 2021, hardback, £25.