Collins Bird Guide: The Most Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe

This is a a very very good book which has pointers on images for id'ing a particular bird so that its easy to see a bird image and see the id pointers. Worth the money. Complements Grimmett.Additional feedback: Suggest going for hardcover over paperback. The print is a bit small in paperback.

I used this for birding in Turkey. Found it very comprehensive

I suppose I should have paid more attention to the title. This book is crammed (literally) with birds most of us will never see. If you are looking for a book that will guide you to the birds you will see in a British garden or walking in the British countryside, this book is not for you. The birds you will be interested in are obscured by the greater number of other birds. It is misleading to say Britain and Europe, it should just say Europe. Yes there is a code to say if a bird is a British visitor, but there is no preference for British birds. There is little indication of where in Britain you will see species. The print is very small and the pictures are also small and very close together, the maps are miniscule. As a reference book it is OK, as a book to help the occasional bird watcher it is of little use.

This is essentially the 3rd edition and contains recent splits such as Moltoni's Warbler and Balearic Warbler amongst others. The extremely high quality of the content contained in this guide is indisputable but I have only given it four stars for the following reason: Some of the plates looked a bit dark and having compared it to my "first" 2nd edition they most definitely are, in particular the warblers. It almost looks like someone has over-processed them in photoshop and this is especially true of the phylloscopus warblers. Hopefully it was just a bad print run and it really shouldn't stop you buying what is without doubt the best field guide for Britain and Europe.

I was advised by a professional ornithologist to buy this book. The illustrations of birds are beautifully drawn and executed. The information is excellent and comprehensive. My only adverse comment is that the text is quite dense and a lot has been packed into every page. I would have preferred to have more space for text and maps, which are very generalized. However this would have meant a substantial increase in price. Overall I am very satisfied with this purchase.

Collins seem to have abandoned clarity in the interests of complete-ism - sure, all the birds that have even cast a shadow on UK territory are there, but the flight silhouettes (especially of the raptors) and species markers on the illustrations are by no means as clear as those in the Petrson/Mounfort/Hollm enlarged edition (1971) that I re-bought cheap and second-hand because my original one got soaked in the pocket of a "waterproof" jacket. I only use this one for idling through birds I'll probably never see and wondering what the heck brought them here.

Wow this book really is everything everyone says about it. To say its thorough is a bit of an understatement. Its not for the casual back garden birder but definitely a must for anyone serious. It lists not only all the birds you might expect in the UK but also everything you might get in europe plus all of the accidentals and all of the one off's ever recorded. The illustrations are top notch and show many variants of plumage. Basically every serious birder should have a copy.