A Welcome Leviathan of Text and Images

A review by Dominic Mitchell

Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds: Passerines, by Hadoram Shirihai and Lars Svensson

Christopher Helm, 2018

2 volumes–1,281 pages, boxed hardcover

ABA Sales–Buteo Books 14873

Birders in Europe and the adjacent areas of North Africa and the Middle East have been well served with ornithological literature over the years. In particular, the ground-breaking nine volumes of the Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa (1977–1994)—better known as Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP)—and the updated two-volume Concise Edition of the same work (1998) documented in unprecedented detail the identification, status, distribution, habitats, habits, and all-round ecology of every species recorded in the region. Moreover, their plumages were also illustrated in a bar-raising series of plates.

When the BWP series came to an end, Hadoram Shirihai was already hatching plans for a “more popular photographic guide” to the region’s birds, shortly enlisting Lars Svensson as coauthor. Some 20 years later, their labors have borne fruit with the publication of this new two-volume leviathan. Although its title echoes that of BWP, the content is much more closely focused on identification, plumage variation, and taxonomy.

Before critiquing the new book, I should disclose a minimal interest, in that Shirihai and Svensson’s volumes—henceforth HWPB—include a few of my own photos. I also helped the lead author source other images, and supplied information on the status and occurrence of some vagrants based on work I conducted for my Birds of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, published by Lynx Edicions in 2017.

Join the American Birding Association at www.aba.org!