Product Description

Another magnificent achievement and a unique work of huge importance - a handsome, easy-to-read, comprehensive cultural study, species by species, of all the birds in Britain. Companion volume to Flora Britannica. Birds Britannica is neither an identification guide nor a behavioural study (though both these subjects enter its field). It covers cultural links; social history; birds as food; ecology; the lore and language of birds; myths, art, literature and music; anecdotes, birdsong and rare facts; modern developments; migration, the seasons and our sense of place. An attempt to describe the interaction of birds and humans, it captures the essence of why birds matter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6577 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Released on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 484 pages

From the Publisher
Published to universal acclaim: "A national monument ...The wider wonders of bird life rise from the pages of Birds Britannica like a distant flock of winter waders' Sunday Times. 'There are not many reference books I could happily read from cover to cover - but this is a welcome exception. The publishers claim that Birds Britannica is "a bird book like no other", and, for once, the hype is justified. Be warned: you may become so immersed in its pages that, before you realise it, the dawn chorus has begun' Evening Standard. 'Brims over with joy' Telegraph. 'British bird life has found its perfect encyclopedist ... The book is a triumph' Guardian

About the Author
RICHARD MABEY is Britain's foremost nature writer, as famous for the beauty of his prose as for his exceptional knowledge and insights. His previous books include Food for Free, The Unofficial Countryside, The Book of Nightingales and Nature Cure. His biography of Gilbert White won the Whitbread Biography Award. MARK COCKER, of whom Birding World wrote 'Cocker is undoubtedly the best contemporary writer on birding issues', is the author of the bestselling Birders and a biography of Britain's most colourful ornithologist, Richard Meinertzhagen. He has been birding for more than 30 years, and writes on birds and environmental issues for The Times and the Independent. He has been awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to study the birds of West Africa.

Customer Reviews

I agree
Yes, this book is everything the other reviews say it is. If you like a bit of social history and literature with your birds, you will find this a satisfying read. Above all, Cocker is 'a good writer', which means his prose is always palatable at the very least.

A Cut Above Your Average Bird Book

There are literally hundreds of Bird Books on the shelves of Bookshops these days. Why do we need so many? Well we don't really, apart, that is, for the fact that printing techniques, particularly colour ones, have changed so dramatically that photographs virtually leap off the page at you. For example, a Robin looks the same now as it did a hundred years ago, so the bird book I had thirty, or even twenty years ago should depict the Robin in exactly the same way. Well hardly, as I said above printing has changed and the advance of the camera is phenomenal.

What used to be `stock or library photographs,' appearing in the same format in book after book have now been superseded by new and vibrant photographs of close-ups of birds, both nesting on the wing and in places that were inaccessible to any kind of successful camera work, just a few years ago.

This book is both comprehensive and easy to read and of course the text is backed up by wonderful photographs of British birds in all kinds of situations. Although it is a reference book, it is also a book that you can actually read and enjoy. It covers the birds species by species, in such detail that it practically tells you what they have for breakfast. Joking apart it virtually does just that.

Much more than a species identification and certainly not one to take out in the field with you. There are lots of other books that serve that purpose very well. This book is a book to savour (no pun intended). A book for the fireside, when the wind is whistling around the chimney pots.

quite simply superb
This superb, lavishly illustrated book deserves pride of place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in birds, British natural history or the relations between humans and other animals.

The text draws as much from literature, anecdote and social/cultural history as it does from ornithology but that only widens and deepens its impact. At times the book is quite numbingly sad (without being mawkish or sentimental), leaving the reader with a sense of outrage at our historical, and to some extent ongoing, treatment of wild birds. Although, it has to be said, the story isn't all one of cruelty and exploitation. In short this book perfectly captures our species' contradictory attitudes to wild animals very accurately indeed.

Highly recommended.