WORLDTWITCH - New Holland photo guides

New Holland Photographic Guides

Cheap bird books most twitchers would like to have but are unlikely to own

£6.39 each from Amazon.co.uk

Tim Fisher & Nigel Hicks, A Photographic Guide to Birds of the Philippines (Pompadour Green Pigeon)

Bird of the Philippines. Tim Fisher & Nigel Hicks. Photos of some extreme rarities by Jon Hornbuckle, Bill Simpson, Pete Morris & others and a capable text by Tim Fisher. An essential companion to Bob Kennedy's Guide for birding in the Philippines. 214 species illustrated.

Michael Flieg & Allan Sander, A Photographic Guide to Birds of the West Indies (Jamaican Tody)

Birds of the West Indies. Michael Flieg & Allan Sander. Good photos of many choice endemics, with side-by-side comparison shots of Elfin Woods Warbler and Black & White Warbler. 251 species illustrated.

Birds of Sri Lanka. Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Deepal Warakagoda & T.S.U. de Zylva. 252 species illustrated, including all but 4 of the endemics. Good overview of birding sites, noting best places to see the specialities. List of distinctive subspecies to look out for.

Birds of Israel & the Middle East. David M. Cottridge & Richard Porter. 252 species illustrated. A very high quality production.

Birds of Egypt and the Middle East. David M. Cottridge & Richard Porter. 252 species illustrated. Another very high quality production by the authors of the Israel guide. They have frequently used different photos, so it's well worth getting both the Israel and Egypt books. For example, the Israel guide shows side views of male & female Trumpeter Finch, while the Egypt guide has head-on photos of a pair. Similarly a pair of Cretzschmar's Buntings are shown from the front in "Egypt" and from the side in "Israel." Another example: the Cinereous Bunting in "Israel" apparently is a male, with greenish-yellow head, while the duller bird shown in "Egypt" may be a female. While the Egyptian Plover is extinct in Egypt, the authors have included a nice photo taken elsewhere, noting that it could still occur as a vagrant.

Birds of Java, Sumatra & Bali. Tony Tilford, photographs by Alain Compost. 236 species illustrated.

These recently-issued New Holland guides are not available from Amazon.com, but they are small and light and thus easily mailed from England by Amazon.co.uk.