The Birds of Luxembourg

Originally appearing as Vögel Luxemburgs and also Les Oiseaux du Luxembourg, this popular guide to 180 of the most familiar species is now available in English for the first time. You have to admire the country’s leading nature conservation body, natur&ëmwelt, for taking the brave step to produce this book. Luxembourgish, French and German are the three native languages, but as many people now speak English too it was decided to attract an international market.

Although it is smaller than many counties in Britain, Luxembourg has a checklist of 335 species despite being completely landlocked between France, Germany and Belgium. The species chosen for individual treatment are divided into eight habitat classes and are then shown in typical systematic order within these. There is a text of around 100 words that mainly describes where and when each can be seen, and each is illustrated by an image taken by a local photographer. An occurrence chart shows when each species can be seen and there is information on the breeding population. I compared these to my own county of Hampshire and in many cases, they were very similar. However Luxembourg has up to 1500 pairs of Red-backed Shrike Lanius collurio, and when you add similar numbers of Serin Serinus serinus, Marsh Warbler Acrocephalus palustris and Crested Tit Lophophanes cristatus, plus up to 10,000 pairs of Black Redstart Phoenicurus ochruros you realise that an early summer short break might be worth considering – not least as there are cheap flights if you can travel from London or Edinburgh.