• 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

• The Biggest Twitch: a world record year, by the people who did it

  Ruth Miller and Alan Davies spent 2008 chasing a world year list across 27 countries, beat a record that had stood since 1989, and finished on 4,341 species.

• 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.