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Wildfowl of Europe, Asia and North America

Sébastian Reeber

£1.60 from every sale will be donated to
Birdlife's Spoon-billed Sandpiper campaign

This new family monograph from the Helm stable follows hot on the heels of the superb recent ‘Robins and Chats’. The publishers have already produced a title on this group (the 1988 ‘Wildfowl’ by Steve Madge and Hilary Burn) but this earlier volume covered the ducks, geese and swans of the world. This new publication, however, covers just the Holarctic and therefore has the space for a fuller treatment.

This space is not wasted. After some highly informative initial chapters covering taxonomy and systematics, avian topography, moult and plumage, ageing and sexing and hybridisation, the book adopts the tried and tested format of a section of plates with facing summary text and small range maps followed by detailed species accounts covering taxonomy, identification, plumages, geographic variation, measurements and mass, moult, hybridisation, habitat and life-cycle, range and population, captivity and references. Each species account is completed by a selection of colour photographs.

From the outset it is clear that this is going to be a thorough treatment of the subject. In particular the taxonomic reviews are hugely detailed and up to date, covering every aspect of such minefields as Bean Geese, White-fronted Geese, Brent Geese, Canada Geese and Eiders. You will not find more authoritative summaries of the issues involved anywhere.

The taxonomic treatments adopted are in the main conservative (though the oft-criticised split of Eurasian and Green-winged Teal is maintained and both White-winged and Stejneger’s Scoters are recognised) but the variety of alternatives is fully rehearsed and the author is not shy of making judgements over their validity. He has, for example, little time for the plethora of Canada Goose species proposed by Anderson and Hanson but expresses surprise that the four Brent Goose taxa remain lumped by most authorities. Of course, with taxonomic instability come nomenclatural problems too but these sometimes arcane issues are skilfully dealt with, for example in the texts on Black Brant and ’Grey-bellied Brant’, now becoming Branta bernicla orientalis and B. b. nigricans respectively.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is its in-depth treatment of hybrids. These are something of an occupational hazard with wildfowl but, armed with this book, the field birder will be much better equipped to identify them (or at least try!) than ever before. Relegated to the shadows by much of the literature (and indeed spurned by most birdwatchers), they are here brought centre-stage, not only in the text but in the photographs and plates where they are afforded an unprecedented amount of space. Here we can ‘enjoy’ not just images of well-known hybrid combinations such as Tufted Duck x Pochard but also such ‘off the radar’ horrors as Tufted Duck x Wood Duck and Pintail x Red-crested Pochard! This is the most thorough treatment of hybrid wildfowl I have found anywhere and the extensive coverage of, for example, Redhead and Canvasback lookalikes will greatly help our collective consideration of future potential vagrants.

When it comes to wildfowl the other bête noire is of course their propensity to occur as escapes . In this respect this book’s sections on ‘captivity’ will be a great help, summarising what we know of the status of each species in captivity, its ease of keeping and breeding and its price (and therefore its escape likelihood). Would-be listers of Hooded Mergansers and Marbled Teals may want to look away now (they are both common in captivity, easy to keep and breed and cheap) but the picture for Baikal Teal and Canvasback is strikingly different (they are both uncommon in captivity, demanding to keep, difficult to breed and expensive).

Buy now at WildSounds

Published: Nov 2015
Christopher Helm

Hardback: Pages: 656

ISBN: 9781472912343

RRP: £34.99

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The book’s appearance is bright and accessible with a pleasing, uncluttered design both for the text and the photo sections and plates. The photographs are well-chosen, both beautiful and instructive, and, importantly, all are fully captioned with the bird’s age, sex, location and date. It is hard to single out any particular image but I was particularly taken with what must be a very rare picture of a female Scaly-sided Merganser escorting a large raft of young. Many will turn to the plates first, and these are excellent, conveying huge amounts of information for all plumages of all species as well as detailed treatment of hybrids. I hunted for some time for the name of the artist only to discover that they are in fact painted by the author - a remarkable achievement. He took some of the photographs too!

I approached this book with some trepidation. Wildfowl are amongst the most-studied birds in the world and have already been the subject of numerous guides and handbooks. I was therefore very pleasantly surprised with this latest offering. It is thorough, comprehensive and authoritative as well as a highly attractive product. It brings together large amounts of information not readily available elsewhere and will prove to be be an essential resource. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

 

Andy Stoddart
11 November 2015

 

 

 

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