books · optics
Field guide, book and optics reviews: what they are like to use
Field guides, reference works and optics, assessed on what they are actually like to use.
Reference works, natural history writing and optics, assessed on what they are actually like to use rather than on what they contain. A field guide is a tool that gets used in bad light with cold hands, and a book that is excellent at a desk can be poor at that. The reviews here try to say which one a given title is.
For a field guide that means asking a small number of practical questions. Are the illustrations of the plumages you will actually meet, including the drab ones, or only of adult males in spring? Are the plates and the text on the same opening? Does the range map show the season? Is the thing a sensible weight to carry all day? These decide how useful a guide is far more than the total number of species covered.
For a reference work or a piece of natural history writing the question is different: what does it do that nothing else does, and is the material in it sourced well enough to rely on. Where a book is strong on one of those and weak on the other, the review says so rather than averaging them into a verdict.
For optics the assessment is about a long day rather than a bright shop. Weight, balance, close focus, how the eyecups behave with spectacles, and how the view holds up at dusk matter more in practice than a specification sheet suggests.
- Collins Bird Guide, second edition
The standard field guide to the birds of Europe, and why the illustration-and-text combination still outperforms photographic guides for identification.
- The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians
Who the amphibians are named after, in a reference work that turns out to be a history book. Pelagic Publishing, by Beolens, Watkins and Grayson.
- Invisible Connections: shorebirds and the Yellow Sea
Wetlands International's trilingual photographic account of the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, and why publishing it in Korean and Chinese was the point.
- The Wildlife Artist's Handbook: Jackie Garner, reviewed
Jackie Garner's handbook on drawing and painting wildlife: what is in its nine chapters, who it suits, and why it starts with anatomy instead of technique.
Notesshort entries, not full articles
- Mark Avery on Fighting for Birds
The RSPB's former conservation director on his second book after leaving, on conservation politics, farmland birds and the shooting industry.
Common questions
What makes a field guide good in the field rather than at home?
Plates and text on the same opening, illustrations that include the plumages you are most likely to be confused by rather than only the bright ones, maps that distinguish breeding from wintering range, and a weight and format that survive being carried. Coverage of more species is worth less than any of these.
Are these reviews independent?
They are written as assessments rather than recommendations, and they say what a title is weak at as well as what it is good at. Where a book or an instrument was supplied for review, that is the sort of fact a reader is entitled to and it belongs in the review itself.
Do you review apps as well as printed guides?
The material here is mostly printed, because that is what the reporting covered. The same practical questions apply to an app: what it does in poor light, whether it works without a signal, and whether it shows the plumages that cause trouble.
What matters most when choosing binoculars?
How they feel after several hours, which is mostly weight and balance, and how they perform at the two ends of the day when most birds are active. Close focus matters more than people expect if you watch anything other than birds. Magnification beyond 8× or 10× costs stability and field of view, and is rarely the improvement it looks like on paper.