Hel Hath No Birdies

Another catch up post.  After my last posting I managed to find some nice scarce in the form of 2 Great White Egret at Inkoo. A nice little bonus for what was a family eats outing. Great White Egrets - it's a starnge setting, seeing them on Baltic rocky coasts like this. I was also able to enjoy further Great White Egrets at Laajalahti. Great White Egret Also at Laajalahti were some fine performing White-Tailed Eagle and Goosander. White-Tailed Eagle Goosander  It's also been nice to see the usual Goshawks taking up their winter hunting spots around the city. Great Grey Shrikes are also taking up residence.  I've been encountering a lot of hybrids of late.  Starting with this Canada x Barnacle Goose at Myrans. I picked this small looking Canada type on a scan from the car with bins. The rush of adrenaline was short lived though. A cursory check with the scope revealed a white forehead blaze. Feck.  The bird gave itself up eventually. An interesting beast to be sure, the fir...

Ever since Crossley published an amazing photo composite guide they have been in vogue, with titles regularly popping up for various regions. These have often varied in quality and relevance, with few reaching the quality of Crossley, often giving the feel that any given author was simply hoping to cash in on their back catalogue of images. Photo guides are hugely dependent on the quality of those back catalogues, but of course the increase in accessible online databases allows for a level of collaboration and image sourcing not seen previously. Here this latest publication has made good use of such methods, and it's fair to say that there's not a single bad image in the book. The quality of the book itself, the paper, binding and colour reproduction etc is excellent, and at ~25 euro, packs a lot in. But does it hit the mark as an identification guide? The first thing to understand about this book, is that it follows strict borders, i.e. it focuses on Europe, rather than the We...