As soon as I received a copy I was impressed, not only with the charming illustrations and concise and helpful text, but also with the book’s extremely sensible structure enabling birds to be easily identified. In all 227 species of British birds are grouped first by colour and then by habitat (land or water). Some birds sensibly are repeated in several sections. Under each illustration is a short piece of text covering keynote identification cues, mannerisms and where it’s likely to be found.
Sukey Bathgate and Finlay Marsh with Phil Brown
Larger illustrations and more diagnostic
‘Bird Identification Using Colour Keys’ Author: Jeanette Harris, paperback, 160pp., self-published 2012. M Most of us grew up with, and fondly remember, ‘The Observer’s fo Book of Birds’ that provided Bo us with a good grounding in u Britain’s birds - despite some B gross illustrations. Then, in due g course, we migrated to more co aadult tomes such as Collins or Peterson. P Now there is a new birdwatching starter-book to consider, entitled ‘Bird Identification Using Colour Keys’ - it is a novel and sensible way of unravelling the complexities of bird identification. It was written by Jeanette Harris (a relatively new SOG member) and was designed and illustrated by her in order to help her grandchildren and nieces and nephews to get to grips with identifying birds.
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THE HARRIER – M arch 2013
A little over the page size of the Harrier, the book contains a total of 310 good-sized bird illustrations, yet it remains easy to use in the field. But that’s enough from this adult. As I’m not the target market we handed out copies of the book to two children, asked them to use it and then review it. Here’s what they had to say:
