Flight Identification of European Seabirds

Flight Identification of European Seabirds by Anders Blomdahl, Bertil Breife & Niklas Holmstrom from Christopher Helm April 2003 Price £35. ISBN 0713660201

Brilliant! I have been waiting half my birding life for this book – and here it is as good as I could hope to expect - maybe a tad short of what I desperately wished for, but only a tad. The only very minor criticism I have is of the photographs – most are simply too good! If you are 5 minutes from a headland watchable through the car window in the rain-swept half-light of a winter storm as I am you will know what I mean. Half of my sea watching is spent wondering what just whipped past and the other half is spent wondering what I am looking at right now! Birds do not conveniently fly 20 yards out at eye-level – more often they are way low or way high, far distant or close enough to the sea to be obscured by a rolling swell. In such conditions it would be hard to take photographs but the images that might be captured defy identification.

Of course – if I had the eye of many a sea watching devotee I would only be looking for the right features. My problem partly stems from my way of watching in general – jizz. This makes it easy for me to ID what I am familiar with on very little evidence and easy too, to bring forth the realisation that something is out of the ordinary. With sea watching I lack good ID experience so I struggle. I know many fine birders who commit to memory salient ID points and use these in the field – I have to learn but have always found it hard to relate the illustrations in the fieldguides to what I meet in the field, or in this case, the deep.

Now I will have no excuses! Relying, as it does, on a series of photographs of birds at a variety of distances, in different plumages and sometimes in groups this book gives one every change of improvement. Bless the publishers for making it light enough to carry and with a shiny cover that looks like it will repel the odd bit of spray or sea mist. It will need to be robust as it will be my companion now every time I wander down to the sea!

There are not only 690 photographs of every seabird one is likely to encounter in European waters, but very useful text too. Each family has an intro with some points on general characteristics and distinguishing features. Each species account splits down into standard paragraphs on, for example, silhouette, flight & flocking and plumage and bar parts etc. Note the use of language here – brilliantly simple, no blinding with science or attempts at erudition just plain speaking and all the better for it.

What is more the odd myth gets debunked too along the way – like assigning a flying bird to a sub-species is not recommended so don`t be conned by that weathered fable you meet a Portland or North Foreland – they cannot sex petrels at half a mile – they are just a lot better than most of us because they put in the time and effort. This book might just give a few of us the chance to catch up and log a few more on our patches. Before I saw this book I never realised that a flying cormorant`s belly was flat and a shag`s rounded – but I do now and there is a whole lot more I now know that should stand me in good stead next time I decide to freeze off my extremities in pursuit of skuas and shearwaters!

Fatbirder

Created: 21st May 2003