Howard Inns

This really is an excellent guide.

It contains all the species one is likely to see in the UK, including very local populations of non-natives and all the turtles occasionally found in British waters. It has quite thorough introductions to all the native, terrestrial species, including distributions, environments and tips on how to find them, and behaviours, ecologies and reproduction, and has quite good, but not so detailed, introductions to each of the turtles and non-native species. There show more are good introductions to the general status and conservation of reptiles and amphibians in the UK, and equally good introductions to how one should go about studying them. It has excellent, clear photographs of each species and of some typical habitats.

All in all, I think this just about the ideal first introduction to the subject - clear enough for the enquiring child but perfectly suitable for adults, too.

The book itself - a softcover - has a waterproof jacket and it has glossy pages; so it should be proof against the odd few raindrops or stray splashes. The only small criticism I have is that, if you want to stick it in a pocket rather than a daysack or haversack, at eight and a quarter inches by six you need a fairly big pocket. show less