Birds of Britain and Europe
by Roger Tory Peterson, P. A. D. Hollom, Guy Mountfort
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"For nearly 40 years, the Paterson Guide has been the standard field guide to British and European birds. No other book provides such a simple, concise guide to the essential features of bird recognition, enabling precise identification based on comparisons with other species and on distinctive field marks." "The Fifth Edition has been completely reconstructed. Roger Tory Paterson has revised many of the color plates and has painted 32 new color plates, for a total of 96. All the species show more accounts have been rewritten, and the 364 range maps have been updated." "Although this book will be used by expert birders, in the words of Roger Tory Peterson, known throughout the world for his classic guides, "the purpose of this field guide is to make it easier for 999 out of 1,000 readers to identify birds.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
I've had this book since 1970. It is difficult to use being that the info on each species is spread out among 3 separate pages. I do use it because it gives the names of each bird in Dutch, German, French and Swedish.
Even after over 20 years this field guide is still the most indispensable book around for birding in the U.K. and Western Europe.
Not my favorite European field guide. It suffers from some of the issues common to the Peterson guides - maps at the end of the book, which is just a big pain as far as I'm concerned. I'd recommend the Collins book (and a few others before this one, too).
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Author Information
182+ Works 16,016 Members
Roger Tory Peterson, one of the world's greatest naturalists, received every major award for ornithology, natural science, and conservation, as well as numerous honorary degrees, medals, and citations, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Peterson Identification System has been called the greatest invention since binoculars.
4+ Works 673 Members
21 Works 741 Members
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Birds of Britain and Europe
- Original title
- A field guide to the birds of Britain and Europe
- Original publication date
- 1954
- People/Characters
- birds
- Important places
- British Isles; Spain; Europe; Ireland
- Important events
- birdwatching
- Epigraph
- She laments, sir, . . . her husband
goes this morning a-birding.
SHAKESPEARE - Merry Wives of Windsor
"Though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judicious observer to pronounce u... (show all)pon them wit some certainty."
GILBERT WHITE, 1778
Preface to the First Edition. - Dedication
- To our long suffering wives
- First words
- In common with every British ornithologist who has ever travelled (or ever intends to travel) on the Continent, I have often longed for a good handy book on the birds of Europe.
Introduction to the first Edition... (show all)>.
No branch of natural history as been endowed with a richer literature than ornithology.
Preface to the First Edition.
Since its first appearance in 1954 the English edition of the Field Guide has been reprinted with minor revisions fourteen times. The book has now appeared in twelve foreign-language editions, many of which have also been rep... (show all)rinted several times.
Preface to the Third Edition.
This Field Guide covers all the birds of Britain. It also includes all European birds found this side of Russia, the majority of which are on the British list.
A Note to British Readers. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)DAURIAN JACKDAW Corvus dauuricus. Easily distinguished from Jackdaw by whitish breast and broad whitish collar around throat. Immature resembles young Jackdaw. (Asia.) Accidental Finland.
(3rd ed., 1974). - Blurbers
- Thomson, Sir A. Landsborough
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 608
- Popularity
- 48,076
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.81)
- Languages
- 10 — Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 39
- UPCs
- 2
- ASINs
- 22
