Waders of Europe, Asia and North America – the definitive guide to this sternest of field identification challenges – just got even better. This enhanced fixed-format version of the book – featuring songs and calls – is set to change birding, forever. Optimised for iPad, it features the book in crisp, clear high-resolution. Superb, fully zoomable colour plates of the highest detail lie opposite comprehensive identification text, separated into 'at rest' and 'in flight' sections, and accurate range maps. In addition, this e-book features songs, calls and other sounds from all 124 species of sandpipers, snipes, stints, godwits and their kin in the northern hemisphere. This epic collection of images and sounds represents a step change in the way birders operate. It provides a complete field-based ID solution – no birder will want to be without it.

This new field guide offers a complete identification reference to all of the sandpipers, plovers, stints and other waders found in Europe, Asia and North America. The superb plates show birds at rest and in flight, in every plumage variant likely to be encountered in the region. Species have been grouped, especially on the flight plates, so that similar species are shown close to each other. Facing text summarises key identification pointers to complete a quick-reference, field-friendly guide to this difficult and challenging group.

This eagerly awaited guide offers the most comprehensive treatment ever published on the gulls of Europe, Asia and North America. A total of 43 species is treated, and every species is described in considerable detail, with a full description of each plumage and racial variation. Gulls are intelligent, versatile, opportunistic, and ecological generalists. As such, they exploit a variety of habitats, both coastal and inland, take a wide range of food, and are often extremely abundant. They are also great wanderers, with several American species regularly appearing in Western Europe and vice versa. As well as identification criteria, this book includes an up-to-date assessment of the range and status of every species, together with information on patterns of vagrancy. This important guide is published at a critical time in the development of dull taxonomy. The large, white-headed forms occurring in the region comprise a superspecies complex, with the precise relationships between the various components still under considerable debate. A thorough illustrative and textual treatment of the group is much needed, and this book provided the most complete overview of the complex. The text is complemented not only by superb colour paintings by Hans Larrson, but also by a large selection of colour photographs, sourced from some of the finest bird photographers in the world. This is the essential reference to a fascinating and endlessly challenging group of birds.

Wagtails are noted for their bold plumage patterns and extensive racial variation. Pipits are a large and difficult group which invariably causes vexation to birders on both sides of the Atlantic. This guide covers the 26 species of northern hemisphere pipits and wagtails in detail. It treats identification in the field and in the hand, and includes colour plates, detailed distribution maps and sonograms of songs and calls.

Wildfowl of Europe, Asia and North America is a comprehensive reference summarisingcurrent knowledge on the identification of the different species and subspeciesof ducks, geese and swans in Europe, Asia and North America - in essence theHolarctic zoogeographical region. The detailed species accounts cover taxonomy,specific and subspecific identification features, determination of age and sex,geographic variation, measurements, voice, moult and hybridisation. Inaddition, the current status of each species is treated with up-to-dateinformation on distribution, population size, habitat and life-cycle. The textis complemented by 650 colour photos, almost all taken in the wild, and 72 colourplates painted by the author and featuring over 920 individual artworks.Together, these represent most of the plumages of each of the 84 speciestreated in this book, as well as more than 100 hybrids that are observed moreor less regularly in the wild. The photos are provided with captions that focuson the most important features, and the plates are accompanied by succinctcaption text and distribution maps. This new identification guide provides an unrivalled level of detail and a wealthof information and illustrations. It will be an essential reference for anyoneinterested in the ducks, geese and swans of Eurasia and North America.

An authoritative photographic guide on wader identification. Waders are spectacular members of our avifauna. They are especially prevalent along coasts and in wetlands during the spring and autumn migration periods, when members of several species may perform dramatic flocks that wheel and turn in flight. While waders are often particularly striking in summer plumage, identifying these birds outside the breeding season can be problematic for even the most confident of birdwatchers. Waders of Europe is the ultimate guide to wader identification, ecology and biology. Through outstanding photography and concise, detailed text, this book is indispensable for anyone interested in learning more about waders, and is an invaluable tool for identifying birds to species level in the field.

An illustrated guide to all 134 shorebird species found in the Northern Hemisphere includes key identification features, age and sex differences, variations in plumage, similar species, status, habitat, and distribution.

A trans-world journey with an extraorindary shorebird—from Australia's southern ocean to the Arctic and back—that explores the mysteries of the natural world and its power to heal. As the sun lowered and turned Gulf St Vincent fiery, they each called a high-pitched 'peeooowiii!', flashed their black wing-pits, spread their tail skirts and took flight... In a luminous new boook, Andrew Darby follows the odysseys of two seemingly-humble Grey Plovers, little-known migratory shorebirds, as they take previously uncharted ultramarathon flights from the southern coast of Australia to Arctic breeding grounds. On these death-defying flights they dodge predators, typhoons, exhaustion, and countless other dangers before they can breed...and then survive the jrouney all over again and return south to their feeding grounds. But the greatest threat to these, and other long-distance migrants on the flyway, is China's "dragon economy," which is engulfing their vital Yellow Sea staging spots. In Flight Lines, we meet the dedicated people of all nationalities and backgrounds working to save these intrepid birds, from Russia to Alaska, from the rim of the Arctic Sea to the coasts of the Southern Ocean. Out of their hard-won science Darby finds hope for the birds—an unexpected bright light for our times. But his journey to understand these marvellous birds almost ends when he is suddenly diagnosed with an incurable cancer. Then he finds science coming to his rescue too, as his own story and the journey of these little birds intersect in an unexpected and beautiful way.

Sparrows are as complicated as they are common. This is an essential guide to identifying 76 kinds, along with a fascinating history of human interactions with them. What, exactly, is a sparrow? All birders (and many non-birders) have essentially the same mental image of a pelican, a duck, or a flamingo, and a guide dedicated to waxwings or kingfishers would need nothing more than a sketch and a single sentence to satisfactorily identify its subject. Sparrows are harder to pin down. This book covers one family (Passerellidae), which includes towhees and juncos, and 76 members of the sparrow clan. Birds have a human history, too, beginning with their significance to native cultures and continuing through their discovery by science, their taxonomic fortunes and misfortunes, and their prospects for survival in a world with ever less space for wild creatures. This book includes not just facts and measurements, but stories--of how birds got their names and how they were discovered--of their entanglement with human history.