Birds of Britain and Europe (Peterson Field Guide Series) [Hardcover]

Guy Mountfort (Author), P.A.D. Hollum (Author), Roger Tory Peterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1993

With 364 range maps and 96 color plates portraying 548 species, this is the classic field guide to European birds. Covering 698 species, the descriptive text includes information on geographical races, vagrants, and introduced species. Confusing species such as waders, raptors, and warblers have additional notes on how to distinguish them.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roger Tory Peterson, one of the world's greatest naturalists, received every major award for ornithology, natural science, and conservation, as well as numerous honorary degrees, medals, and citations, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Peterson Identification System has been called the greatest invention since binoculars, and the Peterson Field Guides® are credited with helping to set the stage for the environmental movement.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 261 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 5th edition (September 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395669316
• ISBN-13: 978-0395669310
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,403,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good book, not the best organization., October 13, 1999

By 

[e-mail] ([e-mail]) (Lima, OH (book used in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe (The Peterson Field Guide Series) (Paperback)

I found this book to be informative as a guide to what I would find in Europe, but it received a poor grade in the field due to the poor organization. I had to flip through three sections to find a picture, description, and range-map for each bird. The maps were really too small for a US native to be able to tell which country was which, and the illustrations were consistantly exagerated to the point that you could only identify the so-called important features (which often were the same as important features of other birds) were all you could be certain were accurate to some extent. Even though I don't speak German, I actually found a book in German which was more useful to me than Peterson's. The German book, entitled GU Naturfuhrer "Vogel" (Birds), had accurate photos of every bird I saw on my trip. The maps in Vogel, although lacking lines seperating the countries, were much more identifiable to an American due mainly to size. After identifying the birds by the photos, I compared the scientific names to Peterson's, and was able to identify the birds with their English names (although usually the pictures in Peterson's looked nothing like those in "Vogel"). So as a field guide, Peterson's gets no stars, but for the descriptions and scientific names, it deserves a little credit.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but not as useful as newer guides, September 23, 2009

By 

S. CHAPMAN (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe (The Peterson Field Guide Series) (Paperback)

This book has good descriptions and pictures of the birds of Europe, with very nice color plates. There are arrows that point to key plumage differences among species to make identifications easier. Unlike more modern guidebooks, the book has a few disadvantages, including maps that show only presence of birds in geographical areas, and not seasons or migration routes, and the inconvenience of having to go to three different places to find the illustration of the bird, the description, and the map. It would have been so much easier to use if the three were together.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Peterson European Bird Book, August 26, 2009

By 

Holly Waddell (Baltimore MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe (Paperback)

I was very disappointed in the book because the scope was too broad. It included all of the birds of Europe and very few of the birds were native to England, where I was visiting. Also, the book is very difficult to use. You have to go to 3 places to look up one bird. The bird's image in one section, its description another section and its territory map another section. It is my own fault for not investigating its contents more thoroughly. Since I am so happy with my Peterson North American bird books, I just went with Peterson.