Where to Watch Birds in Britain

View other editions of Where to Watch Birds in Britain.
View books by Simon Harrap, Nigel Redman.

A very good personal guide - Rated
As a compromise it works very well. Yes there are various forums where people can ask for advice and birding spots in a certain vicinity, but nothing beats the feel of a "real book" to thumb and browse.

Yes you can collect all the various regional guides but will you use them so often? it can be argued regular birders/twitchers will know the areas anyway. Casual birders will enjoy this. I visited Norfolk, Suffolk, Mull and Speyside in a two week period. This book helped a lot - and continues to do so.

A fine effort - Rated
Very welcome and hugely expanded follow-up to the original 1986 guide, with a good balance of breadth of coverage and site detail. The authors must have faced some very difficult decisions in terms of what to leave out, and I'm sure everyone will be able to think of another site that they feel warrants a mention, but that's the inevitable compromise of a single volume covering the whole of Britain. The benefit of this guide over the more detailed regional volumes is that if you happen to be making a trip to an unfamiliar area you can easily locate any birding spots en route that might be worth a visit - without having to splash out for a regional guide that you might only use a handful of times.

Good, clear maps, and although some people have argued that the few colour pages on particular bird species just take up valuable real-estate in the book I personally think they are a nice touch.