Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World

by Derek Onley, Paul Scofield

Intended for bird-watchers, this is a comprehensive field guide to pelagic birds, the albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters, storm-petrels and diving petrels. Illustrations highlight key ID criteria of the birds in flight, with close-ups of the plumage.

Genres: Field Guides, Birds, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 2007

About the author

Derek Onley moved from the UK to New Zealand in 1972 via Southampton, Swansea, Portugal, Cambridge and Oxford. He lived for many years on the West Coast as an ornithological hippie, and among other things he trapped possums, built a house or two and was active in native forest conservation. After 20 years of wet feet, he moved east to Waitati where he lives with his partner and cat, continues to study birds and grows vegetables, trees and roses. In between he has carried out fieldwork in New Zealand and many offshore islands. His illustrations have appeared in field guides worldwide and he is currently working on a guide to Paraguay birds.

Reviews

[Stephen Dunstan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am trying to review a few of my bird field guides on here this year to encourage me to read them in the internet era. This one I actually bought from a Shetland charity shop last year for the princely sum of £1.50, partly for that reason I had originally assumed it was out of print but you can still get it new for £30.

There has been a lot of work done by Bob Flood, Hadoram Shirihai and others on the identification of many of the species in this book since 2007 and for that reason alone I guess any keen birder going on a pelagic trip would want more up to date reference material, either instead of or alongside this book.

If you were a less 'hardcore' birder or just interested in identifying some of the seabirds you might see on a cruise it's probably still fit for purpose. I can't really fault the coverage, it explains the kind of things you need to take into account when making identifications and the book clearly explains why it has included given taxa as species or subspecies (or even neither). I like the fact that the authors welcome constructive criticism of their judgements where they acknowledge they may part from accumulated wisdom, and that they clearly accept it won't be the final word in any case. This book is clearly 'grounded'.

However good the introductory narrative, and in this case it's clearly very good, a field guide lives or dies on the quality of its illustrations. The A5 softback format includes 45 plates to cover the 137 species, which comes out at an average of three species per page. Birds with several morphs or different plumages at different ages get more space than less variable ones. Derek Onley's artwork is of a high standard, it is perhaps 'softer' than other artists who do plates of these species in field guides but it's probably a person preference as to whether you prefer one or the other.