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

Product Information

I barely have any niggles with the app, but one is that the 'search by attributes' bar in the top right of the screen is occasionally unresponsive for me. The positioning of the text in the comparison views can occasionally be too far from or too close to the plates. However, the beauty of apps is that they can be continuously updated, meaning any niggles are often ironed out in future updates. Many of the changes in this new edition amount to fine-tunings, and playing spot-the-difference with the 2nd edition is an education in itself. The best field guide anywhere just got even better, being thoroughly revised, updated and substantially more comprehensive than before. It comes highly recommended, even to owners of the 2nd edition, especially given its extremely reasonable price. Svensson, Lars; Grant, Peter; Mullarney, Killian; Zetterstrom, Dan (1999). Fugle i felten: Feltbestemmelse af fugle i Europa og Middelhavsområdet. L&R Fakta. ISBN 87-614-0107-2.

With its greater pagination and added illustrations, the new version is bigger and better than ever. But what exactly has changed, and has it made sufficient strides during the 12-year wait for an update to be published? Svensson, Lars; Grant, Peter; Mullarney, Killian; Zetterstrom, Dan (1999). Fågelguiden: Europas och Medelhavsområdets Fåglar i Fält. Bonnier. ISBN 978-91-34-51038-8.

Most of the species covered in the main part of the guide are regular breeding, wintering or migrant species in its area of coverage, although some vagrants are also included. There are additional sections giving brief accounts of (a) vagrants and (b) introduced breeding species and species recorded only as escapes. In a new collaboration, the BTO have paired up with the respected publishing house Collins to bring you the most authoritative and up-to-date information in this new field guide to the common birds of Britain and Ireland. often called ‘small thrushes’), tits and a few finches and buntings are some of these. More than 50 plates are either new or have been repainted, completely or partly. Apart from this, a few new vignettes have been added. The section with vagrants has been expanded to accommodate more images and longer texts for several species. The entire text and all maps have of course also been revised. The app can be set to five languages – English, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish – and contains bird names in 18 languages, including Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. Known Issues

I could find next to nothing that I didn’t like about the app; the main issue I discovered was that the species comparisons are evidently optimised for viewing on the larger screen of an iPad. On my iPhone 5s, the presented information appears very small for some species comparisons (Arctic, Common and Whiskered Terns for example), with the text unreadable when they are presented directly together in this way – something that would be curable with the introduction of pinching in a future version. Another minor (and slightly pedantic) point is that there are the odd snippets of out-of-date information in the text, and some of the British status codes are a little wayward – though these are problems stemming from the original text, rather than a fault of the app itself. With expanded text and additional colour illustrations, the third edition of the hugely successful Collins Bird Guide is a must for every birdwatcher. The new illustrations are, as you'd expect given the calibre of the authors, superb. From the perspective of the British birder, updates to some of the terns, swifts, Old World flycatchers and finches are among the most relevant. Among my favourites were the updated harriers and redstarts, while the distinguishing of Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll is also welcome. But the advantages of apps go well beyond savings on weight. In fact, the benefits of apps and eBooks are so strong that I'm now reluctant to buy books unless they are available in digital format. Apps can be searched for particular species or search terms and song/calls can be played – both of which are impossible in physical books. The Collins Bird Guide app offers a 'search by attributes' feature that allows searching for birds, using for example colouration or size, and should appeal to less experienced birders. Furthermore, it has a comparison feature, which allows similar species from various parts of the book to be compared side by side, which is very useful and again impossible in the physical version of the book.ANWB Vogelgids van Europa, second edition. ANWB. 2010. p.448. ISBN 9789018030803. Archived from the original on 24 October 2012 . Retrieved 7 June 2013. The Collins Bird Guide App combines world-class illustrations and comprehensive information with intuitive design to create the ultimate field guide to the birds of Britain and Europe. For passionate birders and casual birdwatchers alike. Among the nifty functions shared with the Apple version include the ability to create multiple lists, potentially a way to keep daily birding records or create a British or Western Palearctic list. Additions can easily be made while viewing a species profile or editing a list, enabling date, time, location and further notes to be added to each record. However, some may find off-putting the inability to add any of the unillustrated species dumped in the 'vagrants, accidentals and introduced' category. The first of these points is also a niggle with the Apple version, on which you can, however, list species without extra details being forced. It's also a shame that the map used for fixing a location cannot be switched to satellite view.

British Trust for Ornithology, BTO, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU, Tel: +44 (0)1842 750050 Fax: +44 (0)1842 750030We’ve tested the app on as many device and Android combinations as possible but we are aware that we have not been able to be totally exhaustive. If you encounter an issue with the Bird Guide app on Android, we recommend restarting your device. However, even if this was successful in fixing this issue, please still report the problem to [email protected]. Remember to include which phone/tablet you are using and which version of Android you are running. The app is quite large and will take some time to load the first time you run it.