Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. 3rd edition

Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. 3rd edition

Herbert A. Raffaele, Clive Petrovic, Sergio A. Colón López, Lisa D. Yntema & José A. Salguero Faria
Princeton University Press | 2021
224 pp. | 14 x 22 cm
Softback | $24.95 / £20.00 | ISBN: 9780691211671

First published in 1983, ‘Raffaele’ is the standard field guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. My previous copy is the revised 1989 edition, which follows the format of most guides of its era, with plates grouped in a single block, a number of them monochrome, both measures to save on colour printing costs; many of the paintings are works of art rather than comparative depictions. Three decades later, the 3rd edition places full colour illustrations opposite the text so that all information on a particular species can be gleaned at a glance from an open spread. Species are grouped by habitat to facilitate comparison of similar species. This may be slightly disconcerting to users who have only just got used to wildfowl appearing at the beginning of a field guide, and on this subject I agree with Steve Howell (Howell et al. 2009, 2012) that we should strive to follow a “field-friendly sequence of families”. But that is only a passing comment; this guide is small enough that a particular group of birds will quickly be found by flicking through the pages, something facilitates by the flexible cover.

Raffaele is joined by four co-authors for this edition, two of them well-known in Puerto Rican ornithological circles and two authorities on the birds of the US and British Virgin Islands. The contribution of each is not described but one can probably assume that status and distribution reflect the most current knowledge. The artists are, with one exception, new, and paintings are of a high standard. Taken together, visitors should have little trouble identifying most of the birds of the territories. As with the rest of the Neotropics, the visitor would still be well-advised to take along a standard North American field guide.

In the 30 odd years since the last edition, the number of species recorded has increased by a quarter!The guide covers all 347 species now on the checklist. Helpfully, vagrants and hypothetical species are relegated to the rear of the book, which allows the main body to focus on those species most likely to be encountered. Taxonomy largely follows AOS, departing in a few cases such as the splitting of Eastern Tringa (semipalmata) inornata and Western Willet T. (semipalmata) inornata, Puerto Rican (Loggerhead) Kingbird Tyrannus (caudifasciatus) taylori, and Puerto Rican (Lesser Antillean) Pewee Contopus (latirostris) blancoi. For the first time, local names are included, as well as standard English names, and they also receive their own index. This will surely be welcomes by local birders and naturalists.

Introductory chapters provide analyses of the avifauna and its changes over time, geography and biogeography, and conservation, while potential birding destinations are suggested at the end of the book.

Even with the increase in the number of species covered and supplementary information, this guide is about the same size and weight as its predecessor, and—unlike many field guides to the megadiverse Neotropics—it really is a portable reference. This is the obvious choice for anyone visiting either Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. The improvements on the previous edition are such that those in possession of a 1980s vintage would be wise to invest the very modest cover price to equip themselves with this new guide. It will also be a mandatory purchase for students of the wider West Indian avifauna. The authors and artists are to be congratulated on producing a handy, accessible guide that will doubtless help further the conservation of the birds of these territories.

Naturalized Parrots of the World

Naturalized Parrots of the World

Stephen Pruett-Jones (ed.)
Princeton University Press | 2021
304 pp. | 18.5 x 26.2 cm
Hardback | £35 / $45 | ISBN: 9780691204413 

As a group, the parrots (Psittaciformes) are highly threatened, with 16 species already extinct and 29% of the rest—118 of the 404 extant species recognised under BirdLife International taxonomy—now threatened with extinction, 20 of them in the highest threat category, Critically Endangered. Habitat loss, persecution of these (largely) seed predators as pests, and direct hunting of the birds for food, are some of the causes of decline, but the pet trade has been a major driver that has also led simultaneously to the establishment of exotic populations of a number of species, often far from their native range. This book is the first to provide a detailed overview of naturalised parrots, with half of the book focussing on distribution and ecology, and the other providing case studies. It is a welcome overview and point of entry into a fascinating subject. 

The first part of the book covers subjects of relevance like the parrot trade, distribution, genetics of established populations, parrot-human relations, conservation, ecological impacts, management and so on. These are well-compiled, very useful summaries, amply referenced and illustrated with numerous tables and graphics. There is plenty of good, hard information here about everything from population trends to economic impacts. Each chapter has been written by notable specialists in the topic at hand, and the chapters are individually well laid out, all including summary conclusions. The graphs and tables are generally helpful and display information at a glance. The figures at a global scale are, however, sometimes of insufficient size to adequately convey detail. For example, Fig. 2.1 on p. 30, which shows world distribution of naturalised parrots, is too small to feasibly show most Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico, which harbours self-sustaining populations of at least eight species of exotic parrot. The same figure omits Venezuela, with its well-known urban populations of Rose-ringed Parakeet Psittacula krameri in Caracas. 

The case studies take up the second half of the book and either focus on species—Rose-ringed Parakeet and Monk Parakeet Myiopsitta monachus, the two most widespread—or geographic areas like the USA, Europe, the Hawaiian Islands, South Africa and Australia. Again, Rose-ringed Parakeet populations are not indicated in Venezuela, or even Puerto Rico (where first reported in 1979) or indeed anywhere else in the West Indies. These chapters are good primers those who wish to inform themselves about the real impacts of naturalised parrots, given the ongoing debates about whether such species should be controlled. There is plenty to absorb here and extensive reference sections are provided. 

This is a much needed compilation of information on the world’s naturalised parrots. Although aimed primarily at the ornithological and conservation community, there will be much here for the amateur enthusiast to enjoy. The care taken in the production, with high-quality paper and a pleasing design, does the content justice and makes this an ideal gift. A very worthwhile publication that will be a major reference for years to come.

Book review: Much Ado About Mothing

 

Much Ado About Mothing. A year intoxicated by Britain’s rare and remarkable moths

James Lowen
Bloomsbury | 2021
384 pp. | 14.3 x 22.2 cm
Hardback | £18.99 | ISBN: 9781472966995 

Much Ado about Mothing is an action-packed, whistle-stop tour of Britain and its moth inhabitants that conveys all of the drive and excitement but doubtless only a fraction of the hectic schedule of James Lowen’s year-long quest. The reader will be taken by the hand—often gently, but just as frequently whisked along with the author—on his 500 mile days out, up hills and mountains, into dozens of the UK’s remaining wildlife havens, including some of the quirkiest spots in the country: from Sychnant Pass to Orlestone Woods, Muir of Dinnet to Dungeness. If nothing else, this is an enlightening nature-oriented tour of the British Isles.

But it is more than a travelogue. There can be no grounds for feeling short-changed on information. The 380+ pages are stuffed to overflowing with moth names, descriptions, potted life histories, folklore, science, all woven into the fabric provided by James’s entertaining personal adventures with the moths and other like-minded souls who study, love and protect them. The list of amateur enthusiasts and experts that James meets along the way seemingly includes all of the nation’s best known moth experts, enthusiasts and eccentrics. There are constant references to the past giants of moth lore from the 19th century’s J. W. Tutt and P. B. M. Allan, to the 20th’s E. B. Ford, Bernard Kettlewell and Mike Majerus (initials eventually giving way to admission of actual names). Along the way, the principles of Müllerian mimicry and controversy over industrial melanism are succinctly explained, along with the pervasive issue of conservation. Indeed, much of the year is spent seeking out unusual, scarce and geographically restricted species, precisely those whose conservation status is likely to be in jeopardy.

James’s raw enthusiasm and energy is contagious. The Victorian naturalists might be his historical forbears, but this modern-day moth-man comes across as the frenetic millennial—not he the man of leisure idly twiddling a butterfly net after the Sunday service, but rather (ever conscious of other hands on his time) a determined and disciplined aurelian loaded with state-of-the-art professional photographic gear or moth trapping paraphernalia to the point of physical discomfort and potential bodily injury, eyes darting anxiously after his current quarry, fingers of the hands in his pocket jangling the keys of his ‘Quattro’ in anticipation of the next moth rendezvous on the frighteningly long list of appointments. No-one I know would have been able to execute such a punishing schedule that clearly often combined visits to several widely separated sites in one day or required serial all-night vigils followed by days of processing the spoils. The results are apparent, between the covers of this book.

For those who are no stranger to Merveille du Jour and even Clifden Nonpareil, this will make a rollicking good read, and should provide the stimulus to go out and do more, explore new areas, experiment with pheremone lures, or simply overcome the end of week fatigue to put out the Robinson trap on that dull Friday evening. But if you have been wondering what this mothing business is about and are waiting to be nudged into taking the plunge, this book could well be for you. Be warned: mothing is an addictive pastime, and you are unlikely to be able to resist James’s siren call to spend a year or two ‘intoxicated by Britain’s rare and remarkable moths’.

Flight Identification of European Passerines and select landbirds

Flight Identification of European Passerines and select landbirds

Tomasz Cofta
Princeton University Press WILDGuides | 2021
496 pp. | 16 x 24 cm
Paperback | £38 / $ 45 | ISBN: 9780691177571

Ever since its inception at the turn of the millennium, the WILDGuides series has repeatedly broken new ground in field guide concepts and production. From the championing of photographic guides and use of digital artwork, to coverage of overlooked taxonomic groups, the series has made a name for pushing the frontiers of field guide capability. The current title certainly follows that precedent. We have enjoyed flight identification guides to non-passerines for decades, but the practicalities of producing an illustrated guide to smaller, fluttery passerines are considerable. And would the birding public need or want such a guide? Well, the gauntlet has quietly been taken up and the book is out. I suspect WILDGuides have done it again by publishing another indispensable guide that we did not know we needed.

This is a large and detailed guide, slightly larger than Britain’s Birds and about the same weight. The book treats 205 passerines and 32 non-passerines, approximately one third of the number covered there, which gives some idea of the amount of space afforded each species. The book goes into considerably more detail on its subject than any other available guide, providing a wealth of information that will be of immediate interest to the vismig and nocmig communities, but with wider appeal to all keen birders who strive to improve their field identification skills.

 

This is one book that benefits from a careful read of the introductory sections, which advise on how to use the guide and set out an important framework for analysing passerines in flight that covers structure and shape, colouration, flight characteristics, flock dynamics and vocalisations. These sections are worth studying because they break down the components that comprise each species’ flight signature and reinforce a habit of running through this checklist in order to identify birds. They also establish definitions that are used in the species identification accounts. Much of this information will be new to the average user and is worth digesting before proceeding to the species accounts. It is worth at this point noting the author’s credentials. I first came across Tomasz Cofta’s striking bird illustrations while reviewing drafts of The World's Rarest Birds in 2012, when he stepped in to provide images of those 75 species that were so rare that no photograph existed. But, by his own account, Cofta has spent thousands of hours observing migrating birds, has ringed almost 100,000 individuals and published a hundred articles (mostly in Polish journals), so he should not lack the authority to produce such a book.

Each species account is typically constructed around digital artwork depicting the species from the side above and below supplemented by a gallery of photographs, 2400 in all, obtained under field conditions. The less than studio quality of the photographs, sometimes taken at odd angles, often backlit, occasionally blurry, counterbalances the meticulous precision of the paintings by capturing the sort of glimpses that one might snatch in field observations. That is not to say that many of the photographs are not of excellent quality. The combination of clean, precise artwork and field photographs works well in giving an idea of the flight jizz of most species.

The text is surprisingly detailed, longer than some field guide texts. Who would have guessed that there was so much to say about small birds in flight? There is a lot to digest here, and I confess I am still in that process, slowly reading through species of interest in order to assimilate new information.

Efforts have been made to compare similar species, so, for example, the section on thrushes nicely distinguishes each species on a combination of differences in tail length, flapping rate, flight-wave and flock size even without a the need to obtain a hint of colour.

Sound is at least as important as visual clues in identifying flying birds, and Cofta gets as close as it is possible to get in a book to a comprehensive description by triangulating transliterations of calls, sonograms, and a single QR code link to sound recordings hosted on the Princeton University Press Soundcloud website. Sonograms are a very powerful tool that have grown in popularity. They were virtually unheard of in British birding circles before the publication of the first volume of BWP in 1977, which confounded many buyers by including them. Perhaps the biggest boost to their popularity has come from the growing popularity of nocmig, where identification of flight calls by sonograms is routine. The only other other field guides that attempt comprehensive coverage of bird vocalisations by sonograms that I am aware of are Nathan Pieplow’s excellent Peterson field guides to North American birds, and I would love to see an equivalent for the Western Palaearctic.

In sum, this pioneering guide is a formidable reference tool for identifying passerines in flight. It will deepen the understanding of anyone interested in the subject, particularly vismig and nocmig enthusiasts, but also the garden patch birder straining to determine the identity of the smaller birds that fly over the house. A strong recommendation for anyone wanting to push their personal frontiers of bird identification.

References

Cramp, S. et al. (1997–1996) Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East And North Africa Volumes 1–9. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hirschfeld, E., Swash, A., & Still, R. (2013) The World's Rarest Birds. Princeton University Press WILDGuides, Oxfordshire.

Hume, R., Still, R., Swash, A. R., Harrop, H. & Tipling, D. (2020) Britain’s Birds. An Identification Guide to the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press WILDGuides, Oxfordshire.

Pieplow, N. (2017) Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.

Pieplow, N. (2019) Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Western North America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.

Book review: The Birds of Cuba. An Annotated Checklist

The Birds of Cuba. An Annotated Checklist. BOC Checklist Series: 26

Arturo Kirkconnell, Guy M. Kirwan, Orlando H. Garrido, Andy D. Mitchell & James W. Wiley
British Ornithologists’ Club | 2020
472 pp. | 15.4 x 24.5 cm
Paperback | £44.99 = $ 61 | ISBN: 9780952288671

My first visits to Cuba were in 1995 and 1996, as a consultant to the World Conservation Monitoring Centre and United Nations Development Programme respectively, to work with Miguel Vales and a team of Cuban scientists at the Centro Nacional de Biodiversidad (CeNBio-IES) on the national Biodiversity Country Study, one of the first requirements of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. This was during the período especial, the 'Special Period' of adverse economic conditions triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, and it was a real eye-opener for me. Even though everything from toilet paper to fuel, and beef to coffee had disappeared from daily life, and despite our conservation work being frustrated by the US embargo on the country (Nairobi funds were routed through Washington were frozen, while California-based Esri were threatened with fines for attempting to supply the GIS package Arc Info), I found Cubans remarkably hospitable, making me feel most welcome, sharing their extremely limited resources unselfishly and even going out of their way to find a vehicle to take me birding outside La Habana in the Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve. One of my most poignant memories was being shown one lunchtime a Gundlach specimen of the extinct Cuban Macaw Ara tricolor—the sole example held in Cuba—that (I learned from this new checklist) has subsequently been lost, probably stolen. At that time, few foreign birders visited Cuba, the majority of them Canadians or Europeans. The embargo was a disincentive to US tourism, but some birders and ornithologists from that country nevertheless succeeded in visiting the island.

Since then, I have been back several times, and particularly since 2014, tourism flourished as US-imposed restrictions were relaxed, a welcome policy that culminated in the restoration of direct flights in 2016. Although there has been a reversal of political rhetoric under the retrograde policies of the Trump regime, I am hopeful that a more pragmatic future awaits. At any rate, there seems no better time to publish a revision of the Cuban avifauna, something that had not been attempted—leaving aside the more summary treatment in Garrido and Kirkconnell’s field guides to the birds of Cuba (2000, 2011)—since Garrido and García’s Catálogo de las aves de Cuba published in 1975. I was honoured to be asked to review the new checklist for the next issue of the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club.

TEXT TO FOLLOW AFTER PUBLICATION. 

 

For more information on birds and birding in Cuba, you could do worse than read Seeing Cuba’s endemic birds and other specialities.

 

Europe's Dragonflies: A field guide to the damselflies and dragonflies

Europe's Dragonflies: A field guide to the damselflies and dragonflies 

 

Dave Smallshire & Andy Swash

Princeton University Press WILDGuides | 2020

360 pp. | 15 x 21 cm 

Paperback | £25 / $ 29.95 | ISBN: 9780691168951

 

Few groups illustrate as clearly as dragonflies the enormous advances in field guide technology over the past few decades. I became interested in the Odonata at a local nature reserve at age 11, and having read the school library’s copy of Collins New Naturalist Dragonflies from cover to cover I soon needed something to help me identify the species I encountered. At that time, the only identification guide available to me —and in a new edition on sale in the coveted natural history corner of Austicks Bookshop— was the slim, A4-sized volume by Harley Books. At £16.95 it was fabulously expensive, but my 1984 school Physics prize put it within reach and I spent the next few weeks bubbling with the anticipation of actually receiving it from the headmaster. As I carefully scrutinised its pages over and over again, it did not seem as if identification literature could ever get better than its sumptuous super-life-size full-colour plates, technical keys to both adults and larvae, and impressive 10 km square National Grid maps. The excitement was tempered slightly by the fact that I could now see starkly that I was apparently never going to be able to find many more species this far north in Yorkshire: most British dragonflies were limited to the balmy climes south of the Humber. 

The evolution of dragonfly guides...

I still have enormous affection for that identification guide, and great respect for its author, who —like so many great naturalists— was not a professional, but a north London schoolmaster, and I still take it off the shelves to learn its insight into the species that I find. But times have changed for those wishing to identify dragonflies. On one hand the number of potential species has increased as dragonflies expand their ranges, moving northwards to colonise the British Isles, and on the other the identification literature has vastly improved to more than keep pace with new challenges. The illustrations of Richard Lewington have greatly facilitated the amateur identification of several once arcane insect groups and collaborations with Steve Brooks in 1997 and Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra in 2006 produced ground-breaking guides to British and European dragonflies respectively. Both are a pleasure to use. The former has run to three editions while a second edition of the latter is in press as I write. On a different tack, the WILDGuides team employed their trademark photographic approach to produce a complementary guide to Britain’s dragonflies in 2004; the 2014 third edition is excellent, a resource that I use alongside Brooks & Lewington. So it is perhaps no surprise that WILDGuides have taken the logical step to publishing a photographic guide to the wider region of Europe. There has been no better time to get out and explore the European dragonfly fauna.

The new guide has all the hallmarks we have come to expect from WILDGuides publications. It is portable, robust, oriented at field identification by amateurs as well as professionals, visually intuitive, and makes use of the highest quality photographic images skilfully manipulated by design wizard Rob Still. As with other titles in the series, it also includes introductions to the identification of particular subgroups and plenty of comparative plates and text to facilitate correct identification, thus guiding the user in the process of identification. This use of ‘visual keys’ is one of the strengths of the book, and the series as a whole.

This guide covers all 140 of Europe’s species. Apart from the keys and comparative plates, each species receives a full double-spread account comprising three to ten or more photographs and facing text set against the background image of a typical habitat. There are 1400 photographs in all. The text is concise and very easy to navigate. Abundance and seasonality data are placed adjacent to range maps to facilitate the rapid narrowing-down of options, while the main body of text focuses on identification, behaviour and breeding habitat. A short list of similar species (with respective page numbers) is shown at the bottom left of each species account.

Distribution maps are based on the 2015 Atlas of the European dragonflies and damselflies. Each is printed at a scale (43 x 34 mm) that allows just sufficient resolution to determine whether or not the species is likely to be encountered at a given location. Interestingly, since I received my school prize field guide a dozen new (mostly) continental species have been recorded in the UK, half of them (Chalcolestes viridis, Lestes barbarus, Coenagrion scitulum [recolonising], Erythromma viridulum, Anax parthenope, A. ephippiger) becoming established, having bred or at least recorded egg-laying. Others, like Aeshna mixta, was, as its name Migrant Hawker suggests, largely an immigrant only just beginning to breed in the UK, but is now a common resident throughout most of England. The still more southerly A. affinis, a rare vagrant when I was at school, has subsequently expanded its European range several hundred kilometres polewards and has now also bred in the UK, something that will make its English name of Southern Migrant Hawker redundant. In fact, many species have expanded their range north and westwards in response to a warming climate. And one thought to be extirpated in my school days, Lestes dryas, has been rediscovered, within a few kilometres of my current home.

As ever with WILDGuides publications, the book has been issued in association with a relevant conservation organisation, in this case the British Dragonfly Society, and there is a strong emphasis on conservation throughout, including details of IUCN Red List status for each species in a handy checklist located at the end of the book.

This book is almost self-recommending. Anyone with an interest in the dragonflies of the region will want a copy. Even for those who limit their travels to the UK —virtually all of us at present— this guide will provide vital context and also some handy identification tips. I am very glad to have this book on my shelves and wish a copy had been available to help me with the challenges of exploring the Iberian Odonata. At the same time, I look forward to the publication of the second edition of Dijkstra & Lewington’s wonderful guide. The two should complement each other perfectly.

 

___________________

  

Accessible, easy-to-understand introductory material.

A wealth of information packed into concise, image-rich content in a careful layout designed to provide the most helpful cues along the quickest and easiest route to identification.

'Visual keys' to the trickiest groups making full use of painstakingly selected images supplemented with identification pointers.

One of several critical comparison plates.

Detail of a particularly useful comparison plate depicting lateral views of flying Aeshna males. 

Checklist of European Odonata.

 

 

References 

 

Askew, R.R. (2004) The dragonflies of Europe. 2nd edition. Harley, Colchester. 

 

Brooks, S. & Lewington, R. (1997) Field guide to the dragonflies and damselflies of Great Britain and Ireland. British Wildlife Publishing, Dorset. 

 

Corbet, P.S., Longfield, C. & Moore, N.W. (1960) Dragonflies. Collins (New Naturalist No. 41), London. 

 

Dijkstra, K-D.B. & Lewington, R. (2006) Field guide to the dragonflies of Britain and Europe. British Wildlife Publishing, Dorset. 

 

Galliani, C., Scherini, R. & Piglia, A. (2017) Dragonflies and damselflies of Europe. A scientific approach to the identification of European Odonata without capture. World Biodiversity Association (WBA Handbooks No. 7), Verona. 

 

Hammond, C.O. & Merritt, R. (1983) The dragonflies of Great Britain and Ireland. 2nd edition. Harley, Colchester. 

 

Kalkman, V.J. & Boudot, J-P. (2015) Atlas of the European dragonflies and damselflies. KNNV, Netherlands. 

 

Smallshire, D. & Swash, A. (2014) Britain’s dragonflies: A field guide to the damselflies and dragonflies of Britain and Ireland. 3rd edition. Princeton WILDGuides, Hampshire.

Britain's Ferns: A field guide to the clubmosses, quillworts, horsetails and ferns of Great Britain and Ireland

Britain's Ferns: A field guide to the clubmosses, quillworts, horsetails and ferns of Great Britain and Ireland

James Merryweather
Princeton University Press WILDGuides | 2020
280 pp. | 15 x 21 cm
Paperback | £20 / $ 23.95 | ISBN: 9780691180397

Ferns are – at least to this novice – a rather daunting identification prospect, notwithstanding the manageably low diversity compared with more popular taxonomic groups. My first attempt to get to grips with ferns was in the early 1980s, enthused by the newly published Grasses, ferns, mosses and lichens of Great Britain and Ireland, one of several ground-breaking Roger Phillips guides published by Pan (of which his Mushrooms has best stood the test of time). This was quickly supplemented by the Collins guide to the grasses, sedges, rushes and ferns of Britain and Northern Europe, from another proven field guide pedigree. As I take them off the shelf now, these pioneering aids look decidedly dated, and perhaps I can be pardoned for blaming my lack of expertise to some extent on deficiencies in the literature. In the intervening period (while I lived outside the UK), Page’s excellent The ferns of Britain and Ireland, has become the standard work, although since it is seemingly never to be found second hand for less than £60 I am not in a position to have acquired it. So I lay out my cards as an interested – and probably not very persevering – novice, and my assessment of the current guide should be taken as such.

But there’s no excuse for not tackling this group now. James Merryweather’s new field guide should put British fern identification within the reach of the most botanically (and economically) challenged. It is small, portable, clear and up-to-date. All 60 native ferns, 6 clubmosses, 3 quillworts and 9 horsetails are treated in this new photographic guide, in a format that will be very familiar to aficionados of the growing WILDGuides series.

Like most WILDGuides books, the aim is not merely teach the user the characters of each species, but primarily to inculcate an identification process that can be applied to any specimen encountered. As with companion guides, the introductory sections – a full 97 pages – comprise identification procedures, extremely detailed keys, and a guide to families. Those allergic to keys should not be put off, since this highly visual resource bears little resemblance to the dry dichotomous texts of yore. Here text, photographs, diagrams and clever design are married to produce a tool that the least technically proficient will be able to use. So the recommended way to use the guide is to work through the keys to find a suggested identification, which then directs the user to a full species description.


The species descriptions each cover a double-page spread, with most of the text, a map and a full-plant photograph appearing on the left, complemented by large photographs of fronds, sporangia and further detail on the right. These are very straightforward to peruse. Additional tables are provided to aid critical identification of the tricky British male-ferns. The closing pages are largely devoted to guidance as to when and where to encounter ferns and to further resources for study and recording. The skill of designer Rob Still is everywhere apparent, making the material supremely accessible.

The text itself is remarkably free from technical terms, so can be used with ease by the complete beginner. Indeed, the warm, accessible, occasionally whimsical style, is ideally suited to the task. However, the amount of information provided will make it just as handy for experienced botanists or professional ecologists. The author has decades of experience in the field and has already produced a previous illustrated key in the popular Field Studies Council AIDGAP series.

This is yet another ground-breaking WILDGuides initiative: as the first portable photographic field guide to British ferns, it really plugs a gap in the British identification literature. As usual, I can find little to fault here, and no reason why any keen naturalist would not want to get hold of a copy. I would expect to see interest in this group increase in response, as has occurred with the emergence of previous novel guides, to the benefit of national recording schemes. This can only be good for conservation, which is one of the major aims of the WILDGuides founders. Grasses next?

References

Fitter, A., Fitter, R. & Farrer, A. (1984) Collins guide to the grasses, sedges, rushes and ferns of Britain and Northern Europe. Collins, London.

Merryweather, J. (2007) The fern guide. 3rd edition. Field Studies Council, Shrewsbury.

Page, C.N. (1997) The ferns of Britain and Ireland. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press.

Phillips, R. (1980) Grasses, ferns, mosses and lichens of Great Britain and Ireland. Pan, London.

Phillips, R. (1981) Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe. Pan, London.

Rose, F. (1989) Colour identification guide to the grasses, sedges, rushes and ferns of the British Isles and north-western Europe. Viking, London.

Book review: Britain’s Birds. An Identification Guide to the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland. Second Edition

Britain’s Birds. An Identification Guide to the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland. Second Edition, fully revised and updated

Rob Hume, Robert Still, Andy Swash, Hugh Harrop & David Tipling
Princeton University Press WILDGuides | 2020
576 pp. | 15 x 21 cm
Paperback | £20 / $ 35 | ISBN: 9780691199795


Despite commencing birding at a time when painted plates in field guides left quite a lot to be desired, I have been slow to entirely embrace photographic guides. My first was the Collins Bird Guide, “a revolutionary field guide” to the birds of Britain and Europe, and it provided a welcome additional source of visual material at a time when good quality photographs of birds were not readily available, but I certainly never pressed it into action as a field guide. The first publishers that seemed to be dealing with the limitations of photographic material in order to take full advantage of growing photographic libraries were WILDGuides in the UK and Kenn Kaufmann in the USA. Both were skilfully manipulating selected images in order to compensate for different light conditions, standardise postures and eliminate artefacts of the photographic process. Both publishers now have a long list of titles covering a wide range of taxonomic groups, some of which have were sorely lacking in identification literature, and many of these guides are now standard identification works. However, the United Kingdom’s avifauna is very well covered by a dizzying number of field guides, some of them amongst the best guides to any avifauna in the world. A new guide launched onto this crowded field has to be very good indeed if it is to make any significant contribution. And Britain’s Birds, published in 2016, is, and it has.

I have had the first edition by my bedside since that time. I typically pick it up at the end of the day to resolve queries arising from the day’s encounters, and one consultation generally leads on to another. After 40+ years of birding, I still get puzzled or excited by something every day, and this book helps me resolve doubts. It seems fitting that the first author, Rob Hume, has been a familiar name from YOC/RSPB magazines since I began birding. Rob’s co-authors together have truly formidable experience, not only on this topic, but in photography, design and the production of field guides. So the user is in very safe hands indeed.

Britain’s Birds is a large, comprehensive field guide, approaching the size of many of the standard Neotropical guides that cover avifaunas several times as large. At 1.44 kg and nearly 600 pages, it could be reasonably argued that this is not a field guide at all – indeed, my first edition has never seen sun, shower or the shady inside of a backpack – but then again, British birders of my generation were schooled to leave all references at home, but rather to take detailed field notes, something that I dutifully abide by to this day; and indeed, being of a similar vintage, this is the process suggested by the authors.For those who feel daunted by such a tome, or really do want a portable guide to take into the field, watch out for my review of the companion British Birds, A Pocket guide.

Why so large? The authors cover all 631 species on the British and Irish lists as of the end of 2019, using BOU/IRBC taxonomy which is in turn adopted from the IOC World Bird List (note that, as Nigel Collar has pointed out, IOC denotes the “international ornithological community”, not International Ornithological Congress). Another 33 species are also covered. So a page per species is about what one would expect for a visual guide to birds.

A typical species account

What about content? All regularly occurring species are typically treated by a page of coverage which includes text, photographs and a map. Birds are presented in their habitat, giving an additional clue to their characteristics. Scarcer species receive less space, while problematic groups, such as gulls, enjoy expanded comparative sections. All plumages are included, depicted with 3,591 photographs.

Maps are derived from current BirdLife International base maps, which were originally compiled by BirdLife International and Handbook of the Birds of the World (the latter now defunct). They are a generous size that is easy on the eye and permits high resolution. Arrows indicate broad migration routes. Status, seasonality and population data appear above the map, and habitat information below, allowing the user to determine almost at a glance the chances that a particular species has been seen.

Text is concise and, for me, achieves that tricky balance between providing enough description to clinch identification and avoiding extraneous detail. The team’s field experience is much in evidence, with expert insight being employed to craft succinct accounts that incorporate much distilled identification knowledge. Capitals, bold text and italics help navigate the sections.

Any downside? Having written field guides myself, I have renewed respect for those who take on such a task, and am now strangely reluctant to pick holes in the work of others. The production of a work like this is a massive undertaking, and all field guides contain errors, many of them spotted the day after the galleys go to press. However, I would be hard pressed to find much to complain about with this field guide, and remarkably uncharitable to draw attention to anything I found. I had already consulted the first edition on a daily basis, and – barring one unfortunate but conspicuous photo mix-up in my first printing – errors were few and far between, and the overall utility of the guide simply swamps any gripes. This edition has corrected the few oversights I had found and has improved the already high overall quality in every respect. Doubtless Chris Batty’s role as an identification consultant will have eased the burden of verification (he kindly gave me the benefit of his formidable knowledge on one of my own field guides). As far as field guides to the British avifauna are concerned, Svensson et al.’s Collins field guide and this current volume have, for me, become the two standard works the I reach for first, and their very different approaches complement each other nicely. If I need to delve beyond them, I reach for Witherby, BWP, van Duivendijk, Beaman and Madge, Harris et al. or the relevant standard monograph.

Given that I view this as a must-have for anyone with an interest in identifying the birds of the UK, whatever their level of expertise, the question then becomes, “Should owners of the first edition replace it with the second?”. That’s a hard question to answer, and depends as much on the strength of one’s bookcase shelves and the tolerance of one’s cohabitants as any technical factors. The current edition incorporates 800+ new photos, layout has been improved in key places and the entire production looks to have been revised with a fine tooth comb. And, of course, the list of taxa covered is bang up to date, reflecting the February 51st BOURC Report. So American ‘Taiga’ Merlin (columbarius) and Shorelark (alpestris group) are covered, as are other splits and additions over the past four years.

This is yet another ground-breaking field guide from the WILDGuides imprint, and an outstanding guide to Britain's birds for observers of all levels. At a retail price of £20, this is an absolute bargain. The authors and all contributors are to be heartily congratulated.

___________________

A typical double-spread species account, in this case for Dunlin Calidris alpina, showing the major plumages encountered in Britain and Ireland, along with subspecific variation. This is a variable species, and a standard, common 'yardstick' shorebird, so the coverage will be useful for beginners as well as those who want try to determine which subspecies they are seeing. Note the map indicating migration routes, and table showing the months during which different subspecies may be encountered. All relevant information can be taken in at a glance.


The double-spread devoted to the White/Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba complex has been completely overhauled in this edition. I still find alba hard to clinch, despite having read and re-read all of the literature, coupled with hours spent staring in monochrome at borderline individuals, so have already interrogated these pages several times. Photographs have been selected to help people like me. Note the inclusion of personata, new to Britain since the book's first edition.

Ducks in flight: handy double-spread guide to fieldmarks. The images are first class, and the spread has been slightly improved since the first edition, with subtle eye-guiding lines linking images of the same species. Similar comparison spreads are provided for other groups that requite critical flight identification, for example gulls, shorebirds, raptors – even larks.

Particularly tricky identification challenges are sometimes addressed by means of an extra page or two, in this case examining the similar Apricaria golden plovers. Not quite as much has been made of differences in leg length/proportion and head pattern as I might have suggested, but nevertheless the key identification characters are well covered.

Book review: two new guides to the birds of Colombia

Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia
Miles McMullan
Rey Naranjo (Bogotá) | 2018
432 pp. | >5,000 colour figures, maps.
Softback | £49.99 / $65 / $115,000 COP | ISBN 978-9588969626

Guía ilustrada de la avifauna colombiana
Fernando Ayerbe Quiñones
Wildlife Conservation Society (Bogotá) | 2018
410 pp. | 212 colour plates, 1,932 maps.
Softback | $120,000 COP (apparently unavailable outside Colombia) | ISBN 978-9585461031




Just finished my review of two exciting new guides to the birds of Colombia, to be published in Neotropical Birding 26...

TEXT TO FOLLOW ONE YEAR AFTER PUBLICATION.

Orchids on Chapel Green wildflower meadow, Rocklands

Flower-rich meadow with orchids, Chapel Green, 12 June 2019

After an apparent absence of several years⁠—though these things can be notoriously elusive!⁠—Bee Ophrys apifera and Common Spotted-orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii are coming into flower on Chapel Green. In previous years the best area for these orchids has been the southern edge of the meadow adjoining the road, the spot that is driest and has lowest fertility thanks to years of removal of hay. This year, the orchids are close to the pond margin in a much wetter, more fertile area (see photo) that we have been managing precisely to increase floral diversity. This morning there was one flowering spike of Bee and two of Common Spotted-orchid.

Bee Orchid Ophrys apifera

Common Spotted-orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Update 30 June 2019

Today's count 1 Bee and 7 Common Spotted-orchids.

Update 7 July 2019

Today's count 1 Bee and 9 Common Spotted-orchids.


 

Ghost Moth lek on Rocklands' Chapel Green

Ghost Moths Hepialus humuli are one of the few British moths that have entered popular culture and are—or used to be—generally known to the non-specialist.  In earlier times, when insects were more abundant, meadows more commonplace, street lighting less widespread, and people abroad in the gloaming, an encounter with this species would have been a frequent early summer occurrence. Frequent but nevertheless remarkable. The memorable sight of a dozen or more large white moths hovering over the grass tops as if tethered to a thread in the fading light doubtless gave rise to their name.

Today this sight is considerably less familiar. In fact, unless they make a special effort, even moth-ers have rarely seen it. So when keen moth-man and wildlife writer James Lowen asked if anyone in East Anglia knew of a lek to cover in his forthcoming book, I racked my brains and suggested the two places that I had seen male moths in recent years: Old Buckenham village green and Chapel Green, Rocklands. This latter is a tiny plot of wildlife meadow that was restored by Rocklands Parish Council two decades ago through a Millenium Meadows grant, and financial support from Norfolk Rural Community Council, Norfolk County Council and guidance from Norfolk Wildlife Trust. It is a tiny (c. 0·015 ha) fragment of managed habitat that holds a surprisingly diverse and interesting flora and fauna, amongst which is a lek of Ghost Moths. I say lek, but when I checked back through my records I saw that I had only seen single males in June 2014, and (twice) in July 2016.

On D-Day, Thursday 6 June, despite a cool and windy evening, at 9.45 p.m.. I decided that I could no longer put off checking whether this year would produce an improvement on the singles that my memory had embellished into a weaving and bobbing troupe. I was fully prepared to tell James that the promised lek had not materialised and may have been unreliable in any case. What a relief to find two, then four, then finally a dozen male Ghost Moths "pendeculating" – Kettlewell's neologism for South's "swaying themselves to and fro without making progress".

The following evening, James was able to visit Chapel Green, arriving at 9.20 p.m. on his way back from another mothing assignment at Dungeness with moth expert Will Soar. For the first 20 minutes we enjoyed the meadow's wildflower display, twitching at passing Straw Dots Rivula sericealis and Common Swifts Korscheltellus lupulina (the latter a close relative of Ghost Moth) identified by Will. It was not until 9.40 p.m. that the first of our glowing white targets appeared, immediately followed by another, and another... Soon a group of six males were swaying and weaving on one side of the meadow, with another couple on the other. Our neighbour Carolyn, who coordinates the Chapel Green Management Committee, came out to enjoy the spectacle. We wondered if we might be lucky enough to see females, and shortly afterwards a dull yellowish brown female did indeed appear, immediately to mate with her chosen male. We found two pairs of mating moths, both on tall grass spikes, as well as a bloated female that was surely about to deposit her eggs. By 10.00 p.m. the display was over, and only these five Ghost Moths remained, clinging to their respective stems. The entire show had lasted exactly 20 minutes.



What is going on? A lek is an aggregation of male animals that come together, usually at a traditional site, to display together in order to compete for access to females. The phenomenon is especially well-documented in birds (particularly grouse and manakins) but not so widely-known in insects. In the case of Ghost Moths, the males hover over the grass, fanning their wings in order to release from scent brushes on the tarsus of the rear pair of legs a pheromone that attracts the females. The latter enter the lek briefly, select a mate, copulate on a grass stem and then fly off to drop their eggs over suitable grassy areas. The process was diligently observed and described by Mallet in his 1984 paper.

Formerly common, Ghost Moth is now a UK Biodiversity Action Plan species, listed because its populations are declining markedly. Conservation of this and a suite of other disappearing grassland plants and animals species is precisely the reason that Rocklands Parish Council manage this small area as a wildflower meadow.


More information?

Ghost Moth on NorfolkMoths here.

Rocklands Parish Council Chapel Green wildflower meadow page here.

Previous posts about management of Chapel Green wildflower meadow here.

James Lowen's blog here.


References

Kettlewell, H.B.D. (1973) The evolution of melanism. Clarendon Press: Oxford. 423 pp.

Mallet, J. (1984) Sex roles in the ghost moth Hepialus humuli (L.) and a review of mating in the Hepialidae (Lepidoptera). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 80(1): 67–82. PDF.

South, R. (1908) The moths of the British Isles, second series. Frederick Warne & Co.: London. 388 pp.


Updates

James Lowen's wonderfully illustrated account of tonight's display here.

On the evening of 11 June, despite cool temperatures (10°C), moderate drizzle and a damp SE 2–3 breeze, we counted at least 14 males lekking for exactly 20 minutes 2149–2209. The females are more difficult to spot, but we did see two come in and mate with males. The mild (15°C) evening of 17 June was even more active, with a high count for this year of at least 32 males and 4+ females between 2155 and 2215 (and perhaps later, as I left while it was still in full swing). A quick visit at 2210–2220 on the cool (14°C), evening of 22 June showed 24 males lekking, along with 1 female, though did not have time to check thoroughly.

Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa) resighting in Venezuela and Canada

Red Knot FELG9HL, Falcón, Venezuela, 29 Mar 2019. Photo: Gianco Angelozzi

On 29 March, a team of ornithologists working on a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network project (Sandra Giner, Virginia Sanz, Gianco Angelozzi and I) were carrying out International Shorebird Censuses on the Punta Maragüey spit on the western coast of Falcón with Jose Ochoa. Gianco was able to get close to a flock of several hundred Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa) moulting into breeding plumage, and using our best optics - a superb new Kowa scope donated in 2018 by Cley Spy - to pick out and photograph seven flagged individuals, of which only FELG9HL was legible; this bird also carried a geolocator (Gianco's photograph attached - more here).

Red Knot FELG9HL, Ontario, Canada, 20 May 2019. Photo: photographer unknown

Today I checked the bird's whereabouts and found that it had been photographed (attached - photographer unknown) 52 days later on 20 May in magnificent full breeding plumage at a reservoir W of Townsend in S Ontario, Canada. This elucidates only part of the jigsaw puzzle of migratory connectivity for this threatened shorebird, and quite appropriate given that this Manomet / WHSRN work is financed by Environment Canada. Next stop for these birds will be the high Arctic. The earliest data available for FELG9HL come from 30 May 2011 in Delaware, so the bird is perhaps 10 years old and will have made this journey as many times.

Book review: Birds of Central America: a field guide

Birds of Central America: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama

Andrew C. Vallely & Dale Dyer
Princeton University Press | 2018
584 pp. | 16 x 23.5 cm | 260 colour plates, 1261 maps
Softback | £40 / $49.50 | ISBN: 9780691138022

Just finished my review of the superb new guide to the birds of Central America, to be published in Neotropical Birding 25...

Thanks to Princeton University Press for providing a review copy.

Published review below, PDF here.

Until recently, field guides for Central America were getting rather long in the tooth, although such masterworks as Howell & Webb (1995), Stiles & Skutch (1989), and Ridgely & Gwynne (1989) never become obsolete. The situation was remedied by the first field guides to Belize (Jones 2003) and Honduras (Gallardo 2014), followed by pocket guides to Costa Rica (Garrigues & Dean 2007), Panama (Angehr & Dean 2010) and Nicaragua (Chavarría-Duriaux et al. 2018; see review, page 88) published by Zona Tropical/ Comstock Publishing Associates (latterly imprints of Cornell University Press), and by the Peterson guide to Northern Central America (Fagan & Komar 2016). The present volume, as the first field guide to the entire Central American avifauna, fills the gaps left by El Salvador and Guatemala and brings the identification literature for the remaining countries up to date.
     A decade in production, the book covers the 1,261 bird species that had been documented in the political region of Central America as of August 2017, an avifauna comparable in size with that of a typical South American country – quite a daunting undertaking. Each of the 1,194 bird species of what the authors define as the ‘core avifauna’ is accorded a main species account, while a further 67 ‘marginal, dubious and hypothetical species’ are relegated to an annotated appendix.
     The region is delimited politically rather than biogeographically, so Vitelline Warbler Setophaga vitellina, a West Indian species found only on the Swan Islands and (extralimitally) on the Cayman Islands, is included. Taxonomy and order broadly follow American Ornithological Society (AOS). There are some logical departures, such as treating Audubon’s Setophaga auduboni and Goldman’s Warblers S. goldmani as separate from Yellow-rumped Warbler S. coronata, or recognising Azuero Parakeet Pyrrhura eisenmanni as distinct from South American Painted Parakeet P. picta.
     The main accounts comprise carefully distilled, concise identification texts and good-sized distribution maps (29 x 36 mm) on the left, with plates on facing spreads. Layout is intuitive, facilitating cross-referencing to the facing page. For species that exhibit geographic variation northern/western subspecies appear on the left-hand side of the plate and eastern/southern subspecies on the right. Plates are the most realistic of any guide to this region, accurately capturing the jizz and plumage of all groups. Birds are usually shown in profile to facilitate comparison, but the illustrations have a pleasing three-dimensional quality and the plates themselves are works of art. The antbirds and furnariids are spectacular. The figures are large and fill each plate, leaving minimal blank plate.
     Critical groups such as shorebirds, tyrant flycatchers and warblers are very nicely illustrated, the latter with both breeding and non-breeding plumages. There should be no need to carry an additional guide to the birds of North America. It is no surprise to learn that both artist and author spent a great deal of time in museum collections, especially the American Museum of Natural History, checking and comparing specimens. The depth of their research is apparent in the quality of the entire book. It may take a while for the eye to adapt to the lack of colour saturation of the plates, particularly for some groups like vireos and thrushes. However, I find the artwork very pleasing.
     In the introduction, the authors set out their reasons for not labelling figures with subspecies names; having examined the full range of geographic variation they felt that a more general description of geographic variation was more appropriate. Given the diligence with which the authors examined museum specimens, I would have liked to have seen scientific names of subspecies specified, which I think would have added clarity to accounts of, for example, Willet Tringa semipalmata, Short-billed Dowitcher Limnodromus griseus, Osprey Pandion haliaetus, Dusky-capped Flycatcher Myiarchus tuberculifer and Northern Rough-winged Swallow Stelgidopteryx serripiennis.
     Text focuses squarely on the task of identification. In the interest of brevity, it omits information on aspects of life history except where they aid identification. An introductory line on regional and global status precedes the main identification text, which is followed by a short section covering geographic variation where appropriate. Notes on habits indicate habitat preference, the favoured habitat stratum (canopy vs understorey, etc.), and distinctive features of behaviour. The final section describes vocalisations. The compilation of accurate distribution maps across seven nations must have consumed an inordinate amount of time. I could find no obvious oversights, although unfortunately Turquoise-browed Eumomota superciliosa and Blue-throated Motmot Aspatha gularis maps have been transposed during layout. The authors have wisely treated records on popular online platforms with caution, which will ensure that the distributional data provides a solid baseline for future work.
     Compressing practical information on the identification of 1,200 species into one volume demands a good-sized book. This one is about the size of old guides such as Stiles & Skutch or Ridgely & Gwynne, and weighs 1.3 kg. Yes, for those who want to carry a pocket guide, it is bulky, and also heavy. And it is likely that many visitors will be inclined to pass it over in favour of a lighter guide. In my opinion that would be a mistake. I much prefer to carry a dependable, authoritative reference and will gladly have this in a backpack in preference to a smaller guide. At the very least, for those who will not be taking it in the field, it should be an essential reference for consultation back at camp or at the hotel.
     So, an excellent addition to the literature on the birds of Central America with strong text and plates. This new guide becomes the benchmark for the region and acts as a worthy geographical complement to Howell & Webb (1995), with a slight geographic overlap. The authors deserve the highest praise for a magnificent achievement.

Christopher J. Sharpe 

REFERENCES
Angehr, G. R. & Dean, R. (2010) The birds of Panama. Ithaca, NY: Comstock Publishing Associates.
Chavarría-Duriaux, L., Hille, D. C. & Dean, R. (2018) The birds of Nicaragua: a field guide. Ithaca, NY: Comstock Publishing Associates.
Fagan, J. & Komar, O. (2016) Peterson field guide to birds of northern Central America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Gallardo, R. J. (2014) Guide to the birds of Honduras. Honduras: Mountain Gem Tours.
Garrigues, R. & Dean, R. (2007) The birds of Costa Rica: a field guide. Miami, FL: Zona Tropical.
Howell, S. N. G. & Webb, S. (1995) A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Jones, H. L. (2003) Birds of Belize. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Ridgely, R. S. R. & Gwynne, J. A. (1989) A guide to the birds of Panama, with Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. 2nd edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Stiles, F. G. & Skutch, A. F. (1989) A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Book review: Antpittas and Gnateaters

Antpittas and Gnateaters

Harold F. Greeney
Helm (Bloomsbury) | 2018
496 pp. | 18 x 24.7 cm | 24 colour plates, 250 colour photographs
Hardback | £50 / $65 | ISBN: 9781472919649

Just finished my review of Harold Greeney's magnum opus, to be published in Neotropical Birding 24...

Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for providing a review copy.

Published review below, PDF here.

This book is quite obviously a labour of love and, for anyone familiar with the author’s huge body of published work, it could never be anything but thorough. Harold Greeney is unashamedly a natural historian, a term that has regrettably become unfashionable in our modern world. This book does indeed read in places like a work of the Victorian era, with all the positive connotations that this implies, and venerable 19th and early 20th century names like Sclater, Godman, Salvin, Hartert and Hellmayr crop up repeatedly. The feel is maintained by the extensive excerpts from original descriptions that preface some of the species accounts, setting a tone of wonder and discovery that befits a group about which so much remains to be unearthed.
     Distributional information forms a major part of this work. Maps are a model of clarity, with base cartography showing national borders and major rivers upon which known ranges are carefully mapped. A very useful innovation is the inclusion of marked type localities. As Greeney is at pains to point out in the introduction, researching distribution “was one of the most time-consuming aspects of this work”. The maps are based on a vast compilation of records, comprising specimen data, publications, and voucher records held at archives such as xeno-canto (https://www.xeno-canto.org/) and the Internet Bird Collection (https://www.hbw.com/ibc). The half-a-billion records in the increasingly popular (and powerful) eBird system (https://ebird.org) have also been evaluated, with sight records employed cautiously, emphasising to eBird users the utility of supporting unusual records with voucher audio or visual material. In painstaking detail, sight records have routinely been verified by correspondence with the observers. The source of all records is provided; as the author admits, he did not want to condemn future revisers to repeat the process by obscuring the primary data beneath interpretative accounts. These data will be passed over by many readers, but for perhaps as many others they will be a gold mine to be exploited again and again. They are the sort of feature that sets this monograph apart from so many other similar titles covering other bird families, and their inclusion can only be applauded.
     We have established that the library and museum research has been extraordinarily thorough. But Greeney’s credentials as a field ornithologist are second to none. Texts are thoroughly underpinned by hard scientific data, but Greeney contributes much original observation of his own. For example, referring to Plain-backed Antpitta Grallaria haplonota, he relates “A pair that I observed in the foothills of Ecuador (chaplinae) appeared to increase song rates in response to darkening skies...”, a trait that will be familiar to anyone who has spent time with the species, for example, in Rancho Grande Biological Station, Venezuela, where its haunting song is a feature of the soundscape during misty hours. Indeed, much life-history information, such as nesting data, seasonality, plumage and moult, is here published for the first time. Some of this is recounted in a way that captures the naturalist’s joy at observing the events, such as Greeney’s personal account of a Tawny Antpitta Grallaria quitensis adult relieving its incubating mate on a snow-bound nest.
     Taxonomy follows the American Ornithological Society, with one minor departure in the recognition of Grallaria fenwickorum rather than G. urraoensis for Urrao Antpitta, in adherence to International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature regulations. The author recognises that some of the ‘species’ treated are therefore obvious species complexes, the component subspecies of which will in all likelihood, once the evidence is formally marshalled, be elevated to species level. Obvious examples are the Rufous Grallaria rufula and Tawny Antpitta G. quitensis complexes, which potentially comprise seven and three species respectively; the Sierra de Perijá taxon saltuensis of northeast Colombia and northwest Venezuela is perhaps the clearest case in point, originally assigned to G. rufula when described more than 70 years ago, with the remark that it “it seems possible that it may be a distinct species”. All seven current subspecies of Rufous Antpitta are illustrated and, since all 156 taxa recognised in the book are treated separately and in detail, disentangling the taxa in future will not prove too much of a challenge.
     With the sheer volume of information included here, it is no surprise that the odd minor error has crept in. The text states (p. 436) that the range of Slate-crowned Grallaricula nana “does overlap with Sucre Antipitta [G. cumanensis] in the east [of Venezuela]”, from which the crucial word “not” is missing. More seriously, subspecies labels have been incorrectly placed on the map for Plain-backed Antpitta Grallaria haplonota, surely a slip-up at the layout stage. But such things should not trouble us.
     Plates are of the high quality we have come to expect from David Beadle, and are a pleasure to peruse. In this case one definitely can judge the book by its (stunning Crescent-faced Antpitta Grallaricula lineifrons) cover. Photographs of live birds are provided for all currently recognised species, except for Elusive Grallaria eludens and Grey-naped Antpittas G. griseonucha, where specimens are substituted. Not surprisingly, given the author’s track record of publishing nest descriptions, many of the photos are of nests, nestlings or fledglings – all of which will be excitingly unfamiliar to many readers.
     This is one of the best-researched avian monographs ever published, and leaves little to desire in the coverage of its subject. In fact, it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that everything we currently know about this group is contained within this book, so the only factor in deciding whether or not to acquire it is whether antpittas and gnateaters are of interest to the potential purchaser. Given the almost cult interest in these enigmatic cryptic birds, which to judge by the growing number of feeding stations is on the increase, I am confident that the book will sell itself.

Christopher J. Sharpe