2008-03-29 So good I bought my mum a copy as well

I've had this book for about 2 years now and its really good for identifying birds. Layout is logical and therefore easy to find groups of similar birds. The illustrations are a mixture of photographs that have been heavily Photoshopped to look like artists drawings as well as (full colour) artists drawings. These plates cover male/female, summer/winter and juvenile variations in plumage. The information given on each bird just covers the basics: flight, call, nesting, feeding etc. as well as basic stats such as wing span etc. There's a very useful map which shows the range of the birds however, since it covers the whole of Europe the UK is shown a little small. A really useful feature is pictures of similar birds that the bird of interest could be mistaken for.
Bottom line is this is a really good book for identifying UK (and I assume European as well) birds. Its so good I just bought a second copy for my mum.