Continuing our selection of the very best titles available through NHBS:

Cotingas and Manakins

Guy Kirwan and Graeme Green

What?

New Helm Identification Guide from two leading authorities on Neotropical birds.

Why?

The Cotingas and the Manakins are two of the most attractive of the Neoptropical bird groups. They are immensely popular with birders for their striking colours and unusual plumage, as well as being of great benefit to the sciences of ornithology and evolutionary biology, due to their characteristic natural history and behaviour.

This new volume from Helm includes all the latest research into identification and behaviour, along with the latest conclusions regarding the enticingly complex taxonomy of these birds – which is now considered to consist of species belonging to at least five different families.

Colour plates are by Eustace Barnes, a professional ornithologist and artist specialising in the Neotropics, and these are accompanied by detailed distribution maps, while hundreds of spectacular full-colour close-up photographs illustrate the vast majority of the species described.

Who?

Guy Kirwan has spent much of the last two decades in the Neotropics, from Mexico to Argentina and Chile, but especially Brazil, a country in which he has spent more than seven years in the field. He has written several books, including The Birds of Turkey and is a regular contributor to the academic literature. A research associate of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Guy was one of the founders of the Neotropical Bird Club, and has edited its journal “Cotinga” since 1996. Since 2004, he has also been the editor of the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club. Guy now divides his time between his homes in Rio de Janeiro and Norwich. 

Graeme Green was born in Scotland, but grew up in Kent, one of the best counties in Britain for birdwatching. During the late 1970s Graeme was a regular on the UK ‘twitching’ scene and from there it was a small step to travel abroad in search of birds; he eventually chose the ‘bird continent’ as his primary love and has travelled widely in search of cotingas and manakins. He has served on the councils of the Oriental Bird Club and the Neotropical Bird Club, and formerly compiled the Taxonomic Round-up for Cotinga.

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Continuing our selection of the very best titles available through NHBS:

Icelandic Bird Guide: Appearance, Way of Life, Habitat

Johann Oli Hilmarsson

What?

New edition of the popular guide to Iceland’s birds by the country’s pre-eminent ornithologist and photographer, Johann Oli Hilmarsson.

Why?

This attractive and informative guide completely revises and expands the previous edition and covers the appearance, behaviour and other identifying features of over 160 different species.

Includes detailed information, and maps and diagrams, about breeding range, seasonal distribution, migration behaviour, breeding and feeding, and plumage variations by age, size and sex.

Illustrated with more than 700 photos, species are depicted clearly in their natural habitat in various behavioural modes.

Who?

Johann Oli Hilmarsson is a leading authority on the birds of Iceland and one of the country’s most experienced bird photographers. He has written numerous articles on birds in books, magazines and newspapers.  He has held many courses, lectures and exhibitions and his photographs have been published around the world, and he is also president of BirdLife Iceland.

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Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan

Reviewer: Mike Nelson from the USA

One-word summary: “Complete”

“The second edition has been updated with some new plates including Spiderhunters, Hornbills, Blue Flycatchers and others. Also included in some of the plates are food plants which are helpful. Information has been updated at the front and new maps and birding sites have been added at the back of the book. New taxonomic information about the endemics and other families has also been updated with new information about the new species recently discovered, Spectacled Flowerpecker, which has several nice illustrations in the book.

Packed with great information, great plates and fabulous insight into the birds and birding in Borneo this is the only guide you’ll need and it’s small enough to carry in the field.”

Share your views with NHBS customers around the world – click here to create a product review

Customer reviews can be read in the ‘Reviews’ tab on each product page and a selection of reviews appears here on the Hoopoe

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The Norfolk Bird Atlas: Summer and Winter Distributions 1999-2007

“This handsome volume is the successor to Kelly’s The Norfolk Bird Atlas (1986). The famous county has 1459 tetrads, and this new work is a triumph of organization, including as it does the contributions of over 400 observers, the number and quality of whom few counties could hope to equal. Illustrations are lavish, although the lovely photographs, mostly by David Tipling, sometimes overwhelm the maps and drawings. Indeed, the last, which can be useful for providing landscape background, can seem redundant.

The authors have aimed for a much more detailed treatment than any previous county Atlas. They follow the current county boundaries and have even excluded sections of border tetrads which are outside Norfolk. Any reader involved in the current national Atlas will immediately notice four features: November and July are excluded, the summer and winter periods being sub-divided at 15 May and 15 January; no time limit is set to tetrad visits, which average 3-4 hours; the summer counting units are ‘breeding pairs’ (which may be single adults or families!), their totals being shown by the size of the coloured dots on the maps; and no distinction is generally drawn between confirmed and probable breeding, both of which are defined as ‘likely’ and are represented by shading. For most species there are also maps showing changes since Kelly’s period. The authors are frank about possible dangers in their radical changes to what have become traditional systems, but they are surely right in their advocacy of such methods for local Atlases, which must aim for the fullest possible coverage rather than for mere sampling.

There are two important additions to the main Atlas text: P. W. Lambley’s section on habitats; and Marchant’s ‘Overview of Norfolk’s Birds’.”

D.K.B.

IBIS The International Journal of Avian Science

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Beneficial Insect Box - overwintering for ladybirds, lacewings etc.

As the days grow shorter and cooler, many animals are beginning to look for a safe place to spend the winter.

The best way to cater for most hibernating animals is simply not to tidy your garden too much – a pile of leaves at the back of a flower bed provides a great place for many insects as well as some larger animals (including hedgehogs) to bed down for the winter. However, if you would like to go a step further and provide the animals in your garden with tailor-made winter homes then NHBS can help. For insects, including many important pollinators, predators of garden pests, and species that are important food items for bats, frogs, and many small mammals, NHBS offers a range of nesting and overwintering boxes.

Hedgehog Hibernation Box

For popular garden visitors like hedgehogs, and amphibians such as frogs and toads please visit our amphibian and mammal nest box pages.

Bat populations have fallen dramatically in recent decades and one reason for this is the loss of suitable hibernation sites (or hibernacula). NHBS offers a wide range of tailor-made bat hibernation boxes including wooden boxes such as the Double Chamber Bat Box - and the new Triple Chamber Bat Box which we introduced last week here - as well as more durable woodcrete colony hibernation boxes such as the Schwegler 1FW.

Small Bird Nest Box

Finally, spare a thought for those birds that do not migrate south to warmer areas. Although most of us only consider bird boxes as being useful during the summer in fact they are frequently used by roosting birds during the long cold winter nights. Putting bird boxes up in the autumn gives birds plenty of time to find them and increases the chances that your box will be used next spring.

Read our guide to choosing the right nest box for birds

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The Handbook of the Birds of the World series, the first volume of which was published in 1992, has been a phenomenal undertaking, being the first project to illustrate, and provide essential information regarding, all the bird species of the world. This year sees the publication of the final volume.

Not that this is the end. Publisher Lynx Edicions have three new products planned to keep this project alive, the first of which will be a special volume about new species with a global index for the series. Keep an eye on the NHBS website for more information. Customers with standing orders for the series will receive an explanation of their options regarding these future HBW projects in their notification emails/letters for Volume 16.

HBW Vol. 16: Tanagers to New World Blackbirds is available from NHBS at a special offer price of £148 (reduced from £185) until 15th October 2011.

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Continuing our selection of the very best titles available through NHBS:

Seabird Islands: Ecology, Invasion and Restoration

Edited by Christa P. H. Mulder, Wendy B Anderson, David R Towns and Peter J Bellingham

What?

A large-scale global analysis of the ecology of seabird islands from contributors with experience of fifteen island systems.

Why?

Synthesizing research covering island systems generally across the globe, as opposed to specific groups, the editors have been able to arrange the chapters according to theme, allowing an overview of the factors seabird island systems have in common.

The book looks at the unique effects seabirds have on island ecosystems, the threats from various predators – such as the predatory rats of certain New Zealand island groups – and considers the possibilities and impediments regarding predator eradication, and the implications of efforts towards the restoration of seabirds to islands from which they have been forced out.

Seabird Islands is a timely publication not only for the field of academic ecology, but for conservation professionals concerned with ecosystem management, touching as it does upon the role of stakeholders – NGOs, volunteers, island residents – community participation, and ecotourism.

Who?

Christa Mulder is Associate Professor of Ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Wendy Anderson is Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. David Towns is a Senior Scientist with the Department of Conservation based in Auckland, New Zealand. Peter Bellingham is a research scientist at Landcare Research in Lincoln, near Christchurch, New Zealand.

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Two key studies of seabird ecology and behaviour have arrived in stock this week:

Seabird Islands: Ecology, Invasion and Restoration

Edited by Christa P H Mulder, Wendy B Anderson, David R Towns and Peter Bellingham

This book, written collaboratively by and for ecologists and resource managers, provides the first large-scale cross-system compilation, comparison, and synthesis of the ecology of seabird island systems. Offering a new conceptual framework into which to fit the impacts of seabirds on island ecology, this is an essential resource for academics and resource managers alike.

The Kittiwake

John C Coulson

The Kittiwake has been the subject of behavioural research since the late 1950s – one of the longest running studies in the world. In this new Poyser monograph, John Coulson summarises these decades of research, revealing amazing insights into the life of these gulls, with wider implications for the behavioural ecology of all colonial birds. There are sections on life at sea, nest-site selection, breeding biology, feeding ecology, colony dynamics, moult, survivorship and conservation.

Other new books on similar subjects include:

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A Field Guide to Monitoring Nests

“The best of the nest”

The introductory sections to this excellent guide cover current legislation, the BTO’s Nest Record Scheme and advice about finding and monitoring nests without affecting the outcome of the breeding attempt. Importantly, it also explains why there is a need to monitor nests. Along with survival rates, breeding success determines whether a species increases or decreases in population. Monitoring helps explain some declines and contributes towards the creation of conservation initiatives.

The bulk of the book is made up of species accounts in the traditional field-guide format, with one or two pages per species. A total of 146 breeding birds is included, with Schedule 1 species – rarer birds whose nesting sites cannot be approached without a licence – omitted. For each, there is a map, a summary of the dates when eggs and young can be found, colour pictures of the adult, eggs and newly hatched young, and details of breeding ecology and tips on the best methods for finding and monitoring nests.

The BTO hopes that this guide will encourage more birders to become involved in nest recording for conservation purposes. The numbers of nests being monitored has been dropping rapidly for some species, particularly open-nesting passerines, which could hinder efforts to understand why their populations are in decline. However, the comprehensive information covered in this guide will be of interest even if you do not want to take part in nest recording. It may even help to change your mind!

Ian Woodward

Birdwatch Magazine – September 2011

The Norfolk Bird Atlas

“Accounting for Norfolk’s Birds”

Arguably the premier birding county in the country, Norfolk already has a detailed and highly readable avifauna to its credit. The Birds of Norfolk team of co-authors incuded county stalwart Moss Taylor, who links up in this new volume with the British Trust for Ornithology’s John Marchant to present the results of eight years of summer and winter mapping undertaken by an army of fieldworkers.

Surveying for the last Norfolk Atlas ended in 1985, so there was clearly a need for an update – a lot can and has changed in two decades. Geoffrey Kelly’s The Norfolk Bird Atlas also only covered breeding species, so this latest work adds significantly to knowledge of the county’s birds, with current winter distributions also fully mapped.

The premise, planning and methods are set out in full in 18 introductory pages which precede the meat of the book, the species accounts. Some 270 species are covered: those present year-round typically have three maps to show summer and winter ranges and changes since the previous atlas, while summer visitors have range and change maps, and those present only in winter or recently added as breeding species get a single map accordingly. The historical and current status of all are described informatively in an accompanying narrative.

There is a wealth of information to be absorbed from the accounts and maps, and to set the scene the reader could do worse than turn to John Marchant’s overview of Norfolk’s birds at the back of the book. Here, we learn among many other things that the county was home to about 900,000 pairs of breeding birds of 135 regular species during the survey period; that there were some 3.1 million wintering birds in the county of 183 regular species; that Woodpigeon was both the most abundant breeding and wintering species; that the county holds more than 50 per cent of the country’s breeding Marsh and Montagu’s Harriers; and that Red-backed Shrike, Wood Warbler and Winchat have all been lost as breeding birds since the last atlas, but up to 14 more species probably or definitely nested for the fist time in the same period.

All of this fascinating information is presented in a well-designed package, with double-page species spreads enlivened particularly by an excellent selection of illustrations and colour photos, many of the latter by David Tipling. Branded ‘A BTO Bird Atlas’, the format is presumably a template for a series of reinvigorated county atlases by the Norfolk-based Trust, which 20 years ago moved its headquarters to Thetford.

As gathering of data from observers becomes faster and more efficient through online schemes such as the BTO’s BirdTrack project, as well as through dedicated grid-based surveys such as this, it may be that the relevance of mapped atlases like Norfolk’s new tome will overtake that of conventional county avifaunas.

Dominic Mitchell

Birdwatch Magazine – August 2011

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Horsey Estate, in Norfolk, has, since 1979, been home to a colony of resident, and eventually breeding, Common Cranes. John Buxton has been resident on the estate a little longer, and was perhaps the perfect host to his surprise new neighbours…

John Buxton

What a fascinating story – how did you feel when you first heard that there were cranes resident in Norfolk, on the Horsey Estate? What do you think attracted them to the site?

In October ’79 I was delighted when Frank Starling, the grazing tenant, had reported he had just seen “the 2 biggest bloody herons” on the marshes on which he grazed his cattle. The attraction to the cranes was a combination of a quiet, undisturbed area of wetland and a plentiful supply of food in the form of unharvested potatoes. Both sites were within the Horsey Estate area.

How did the writing of the book come about? What brought you two together and why now?

For the first few years I tried to keep the presence and nesting activity as quiet as possible but I felt the story would have to come out eventually. I was worried that inaccuracies would begin to creep in because various interested people were longing to report facts as they saw them. I wrote down careful notes about the cranes’ activities and as I learnt more about them and their habits I realised that at some stage in the future, I should recall the true story as it happened. Chris Durdin was given a sabbatical period while still employed by the RSPB in 2009 to gather and write down the facts as told by me from my notes and diaries I had kept about the cranes over the last 20 years. The work became delayed for various reasons but finally, in 2011, it simply had to be completed.

The first part of the book follows the cranes and their efforts (sometimes exhausting!) to breed year by year from 1979 to 2010. How was 2011 for them?

2011 was a fairly unsuccessful breeding summer for the cranes at Horsey, one pair definitely hatched young by my observations of their activity from a fixed hide at 200 metres. I could not see the young in fast growing reed but could observe the parents by their tall necks showing above those reeds. I was aware also that the young only survived a few days and I witnessed a male marsh harrier, which had nested only 50 yards away from the cranes’ nest, carrying a small gold creature as prey, which he took to feed his young. Another pair of cranes in a different site within the Horsey Estate also failed to raise any young.

What was it like revisiting the history of the years from 1979 – particularly going back through all the notebooks?

It was quite revealing to catch up with my notes, which acted usefully as a reminder of the facts over 30 years. Thanks to Chris Durdin’s patience, we finally achieved the publishing of the book.

Grus grus, the Common or Eurasian Crane, at Horsey

The Norfolk cranes are grus grus, or Common Crane, and the book is full of observations on crane behaviour. The word ‘tenacity’ is used in the book to describe these birds and their endless attempts at sucessful breeding. How would you sum up the typical crane personality?

Like all individuals of a species, cranes vary in personality, I have observed particular traits in quite a few individuals, which I had got to know fairly intimately from fixed hides. The females are undoubtedly the best parents, with remarkable tenacity and sense of duty at the incubation and subsequent caring for chicks. The males are usually less reliable in their duties. Incubation is normally shared but I have seen many examples of the male going walkabout when he should be sitting on the eggs. This can be fatal if we have late frosts in May. One particular pair have only hatched young once in 4 years of nesting attempts.

What has been the cranes’ legacy in terms of their effect on your life experience, personally and professionally?

The cranes establishing themselves in Broadland, after a break of 400 years, is a major event in UK bird conservation. It has kept me extremely busy, looking after them for 30 years and although my son, Robin, since 2000 is now the lessee of the Horsey Estate from the National Trust, I am acting as his reserve warden. A job which he would never have had time to undertake as a busy, self-employed land agent. My present age is 83 and I am extremely lucky to be able to both physically cope with wardening the Horsey reserve and still enthusiastically enjoy photographing wildlife in high definition video and digital imaging with a still camera.
As far as I am personally concerned, with a wonderful wife and family around as backup, I am as fully occupied as I have ever been, doing things I enjoy with great enthusiasm.

I am hugely relieved that the book has been published at last and deeply grateful to Chris in particular, and among others, Nick Upton, for his invaluable contribution and chapter about cranes in Europe.

Chris Durdin

Chris Durdin worked for the RSPB for 30 years and was in the Norwich office while the cranes were establishing themselves…

Chris, how did you become involved with the cranes?

Not long after I arrived at the RSPB’s Norwich office, I was told in confidence about the nesting cranes and asked to help in several ways, including some shifts watching a nest in the spring of 1982. Regular contact with John continued, but it wasn’t hands-on as he and Bridget looked after the RSPB contract wardens who helped at Horsey for several years.

You were in charge for a time of deflecting public and media interest in the cranes at the RSPB office – what was it like trying to keep the cranes secret?

It helped that there was a rumour in the birdwatching world that the cranes had escaped from captivity, so on that basis they didn’t really count as wild birds. We didn’t discourage that perception, which lessened the pressure and risk of disturbance to nesting birds in spring and summer. They were fairly easy to see in autumn and winter from the coast road, so it was easy enough to encourage birdwatchers to look then. Of course there were well-informed birdwatchers and media, especially after juvenile cranes that were clearly recently fledged started to appear. Those in the know seemed to accept the need for care with this privileged information, though naturally some keener media were referred to John, who batted queries into the long grass.

How does the Norfolk Cranes’ story fit in the context of current conservation issues and efforts in the UK today, and how could organisations and government best serve the potential future of cranes in the UK? 

We can start by remembering that they disappeared from the UK as breeding birds some 400 years ago due to a combination of hunting and wetland loss. So no hunting and lots of big wetlands are obvious messages – all the British birds are on large, protected wetlands, mostly nature reserves. That this includes a re-created wetland at RSPB Lakenheath Fen is particularly encouraging. Cranes are big, talismanic birds, and we hope they are an easy-to-grasp way of showing the value of wetland protection and creation to the public and to Government. Cranes have a preference for large, undisturbed wetlands, so they are also a reminder of the value of large-scale habitat protection and restoration.

Crane in flight

So, can we expect our skies to be full of cranes in the near future? 

No, but they should be a more familiar part of the scene in small numbers in a few areas. It’s taken more than 30 years to go from their natural re-colonisation at Horsey to about a dozen pairs in Eastern England, so we all need great patience. An exception to that is if you’re lucky enough to live where the process is being speeded up in SW England, where cranes are being reintroduced in Somerset. While we hope the spread will accelerate, probably boosted by more immigrants from the expanding – in both numbers and range – European population, cranes will probably never be common, given their preference for large wetlands.

If you’d like to see skies full of cranes, the answer is to go where they form flocks in several parts of Europe. One of the best places to go is Extremadura in Spain where up to 100,000 cranes over-winter. I will be there with Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays in February 2012!

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