The Helm Guide to Bird Identification

531 Pages·2014·47.04 MB·English

by  Keith Vinicombe

Laurel Tucker
Laurel died on 20 June 1986, having suffered a cerebral haemorrhage from which she never regained
consciousness. She was 35. We had been together for nearly three years and she embarked upon the first
version this book with great enthusiasm, excited at the prospect of a joint project together. In the event, she
completed only 18 of the plates. Laurel was a remarkable woman, whose vivid and intense personality was
somehow reflected in her illustrations. It is hoped that this new edition and its predecessor, together with the
Handbook of Bird Identification by Mark Beaman and Steve Madge, will serve as a testament to her
remarkable ability, both as a bird illustrator and as a birder. It is, of course, dedicated to her memory.
K.E.V.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
SHORT CUTS TO IDENTIFICATION
GLOSSARY
TOPOGRAPHICAL TIPS
MOULT AND AGEING
SPECIES
WILDFOWL
Whooper and Bewick’s Swans*
Grey geese*
Snow and Ross’s Geese
Cackling and Canada Geese
Brent Geese
Mandarin and Wood Ducks
Eurasian and American Wigeons
Large dabbling ducks in late summer and autumn: Mallard, Gadwall,
Pintail and Shoveler
Small dabbling ducks: Common, Green-winged, Cinnamon and Blue-
winged Teals, and Garganey
Aythya ducks: Greater and Lesser Scaup, Ring-necked Duck, Ferruginous
Duck and hybrids*
Eiders: females, immatures and eclipse males
Scoters*
Goosander and Red-breasted Merganser
DIVERS
SEABIRDS
Cory’s and Great Shearwaters
Manx, Balearic and Sooty Shearwaters
Storm, Leach’s and Wilson’s Petrels
GREBES
Slavonian, Black-necked and Red-necked Grebes
HERONS
Bittern and Night Heron
Purple Heron
Egrets
CORMORANT AND SHAG
BIRDS OF PREY
Red and Black Kites
Hen, Montagu’s, Pallid and Northern Harriers
Goshawk and Sparrowhawk
Common, Rough-legged and Honey Buzzards
Golden and White-tailed Eagles
Falcons: Peregrine, Merlin, Hobby and Red-footed Falcon
WADERS
Ringed, Little Ringed and Kentish Plovers*
Large plovers: Grey, European Golden, American Golden and Pacific
Golden Plovers, and Dotterel
Little and Temminck’s Stints and Sanderling
The rare stints: Semipalmated, Western and Least Sandpipers, and Red-
necked and Long-toed Stints
White-rumped and Baird’s Sandpipers
Dunlin, Curlew Sandpiper, Broad-billed Sandpiper and Knot
Ruff, Buff-breasted and Pectoral Sandpipers
Common, Jack and Great Snipes
Godwits
Curlew and Whimbrel
Common and Spotted Sandpipers*
Green and Wood Sandpipers*
Common and Spotted Redshanks, Greenshank and Marsh Sandpiper
Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs
Phalaropes
SKUAS, GULLS AND TERNS
Arctic, Pomarine and Long-tailed Skuas
Immature Kittiwake and Little and Sabine’s Gulls
Mediterranean Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring, Lesser Black-backed and Great Black-backed Gulls
Yellow-legged and Caspian Gulls
Glaucous and Iceland Gulls
Sandwich and Gull-billed Terns
Marsh terns: Black, White-winged Black, Whiskered and American Black
Terns
Common, Arctic and Roseate Terns*
AUKS
PIGEONS AND DOVES
OWLS
Long-eared and Short-eared Owls
Common, Alpine and Pallid Swifts
SHRIKES
Red-backed, Daurian, Turkestan, Brown, Woodchat and Masked Shrikes
Great Grey, Lesser Grey and Steppe Grey Shrikes
CROWS
Crows: Carrion Crow, Rook, Raven, Jackdaw and Chough
MARSH AND WILLOW TITS
LARKS AND SWALLOWS
Skylark, Woodlark and Short-toed Lark
Red-rumped Swallow
WARBLERS
Cetti’s Warbler
Locustella warblers: Grasshopper, Savi’s and River Warblers
Greenish and Arctic Warblers
Dusky and Radde’s Warblers
Yellow-browed, Hume’s and Pallas’s Warblers
Goldcrest and Firecrest
Wood Warbler and Western and Eastern Bonelli’s Warblers
Willow Warbler and the chiffchaffs
Aquatic Warbler*
Unstreaked Acrocephalus warblers
Iduna warblers: Eastern, Booted, Sykes’s and Olivaceous Warblers
Hippolais warblers: Melodious and Icterine Warblers
Sylvia warblers: Common and Lesser Whitethroats and Subalpine,
Moltoni’s, Garden and Barred Warblers
THRUSHES AND CHATS
Rose-coloured Starling
Ring Ouzel and Blackbird
Song and Mistle Thrushes
Common and Thrush Nightingales
Common and Black Redstarts
European and Eastern Stonechats and Whinchat
SPARROWS
House and Tree Sparrows
WAGTAILS AND PIPITS
Grey, Yellow, Eastern Yellow and Citrine Wagtails
Pied and White Wagtails
Richard’s, Tawny and Blyth’s Pipits
Small pipits: Meadow, Tree, Red-throated, Olive-backed and Pechora
Pipits
Rock, Water and Buff-bellied Pipits
FINCHES AND BUNTINGS
Green finches: Greenfinch, Siskin and Serin
Brown finches: Linnet, Twite and Common Rosefinch
Lesser, Mealy and Arctic Redpolls
Common, Parrot, Scottish and Two-barred Crossbills
Cirl Bunting and Yellowhammer
Reed, Little, Rustic and Lapland Buntings
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
SPECIFIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
* illustrations entirely or mainly by Laurel Tucker; the remainder are by Alan Harris
Introduction
This book is based on the Macmillan Field Guide to Bird Identification, which
was first published in 1989. The original book was born out of a meeting in 1985
between Laurel Tucker and Dr Tim Sharrock, the latter in his capacity as natural
history consultant to Macmillan. The idea was to produce a book that would
tackle in depth the problems of identifying ‘difficult birds’. It was felt that the
standard field guides, mainly because of lack of space and, in some cases, poor
illustrations, could not do justice to the problem of separating similar species.
The result was, in essence, a series of well-illustrated ‘mini’ identification
papers. The original book proved to be anenormous success but, unfortunately, it
has been out of print for many years. Choosing the original subjects was
problematical, but it was decided to include mainly those regularly occurring
British species that present a problem for the ‘average birder’ and to include
only those rarities that are frequently confused with something more common.
In this new version, we have expanded the range of species included. The
taxonomy generally follows Mitchell & Vinicombe (2011). Most of the
additions simply reflect the remarkable changes in the status of many species
over the last 20 years, coupled with changes in taxonomy, partly brought about
by advances in the study of DNA. As with the original book, inconsistencies
have been inevitable, the most difficult problem being ‘species creep’. For
example, it is difficult to discuss the identification of the regularly occurring
Melodious and Icterine Warblers without dealing with Olivaceous Warbler (now
split into Eastern and Western) and, in turn, Booted Warbler, which in itself
leads to the unavoidable discussion of the recently split Sykes’s Warbler. In
other cases, discussion has been confined to the commoner species, as to have
gone into detail on the extreme rarities would have been beyond the scope of the
book. Although in recent years there has been a marked trend towards the almost
forensic examination of minute feather detail, this book offers advice on how to
identify birds in the field, when the instinctive evaluation of shape, flight,
behaviour and call is just as important – this overall impression that a bird gives
is often termed its jizz. It is hoped that, as with the original, the end result will
appeal not only to relative beginners but also to those more seasoned observers
with gaps in their knowledge.
How to use this Book
In order to facilitate the efficient exposition of difficult identification problems, a
rigid format has been abandoned. Each ‘chapter’ has been arranged in the form
of a ‘mini’ identification paper to best suit the topic under discussion. As it is
important to be aware of the likelihood of any particular species occurring in a
given area at a given season, each article is prefaced with a short section entitled
‘Where and when’, but it must be stressed that this is only a generalised outline
that cannot account for every eventuality. Many accounts end with a short list of
references. These point the way to books and articles that contain useful
additional information or which go into various aspects of the identification in
more detail.
Bird names
Since the first edition, there have been a number of changes to English bird
names, some of which have been widely accepted, others almost universally
ignored. The names used in this book attempt to reflect current normal usage by
‘ordinary birders’ but, for the sake of clarity, some epithets (such as ‘Barn’
Swallow) have occasionally been used.
Statistics
The rare breeding bird, scarce migrant bird and rare bird statistics have been
taken from the official record published in British Birds (see Bibliography) and
relate to Britain (but exclude Ireland). Their use attempts to quantify the
likelihood of any given species being seen at a specific time and place. All are
taken from the most recent reports: rare breeding bird data being accurate to
2010, the rare bird data to 2011 and the scarce migrant data to 2007. ‘Current
averages’ are based on the most recent ten years. Waterbird counts are taken
from the annual report Waterbirds in the UK and are accurate up to 2010/11.