Monday, July 23, 2007

Bees and Books

A study in the Journal of Applied Ecology has shown that bumblebees are more likely to nest in Gardens than they are in habitats such as woodlands and grasslands. This gives further evidence to the importance of the garden to wildlife.

And whilst I'm here I saw three interesting field guides the other day.

Philip's have issued the Guide to Butterflies of Britain and Ireland by JA Thomas and Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe by Hakan Delin and Lars Svensson.

The former is particularly impressive. It has a 16 page section with drawings by Richard Lewington showing relevant species together for quick identification and then has more detailed info (2 pages per flutter).

The bird guide is based on an old guide by Bertel Brunn and Arthur Singer with 32% of the plates being newly commissioned. It is not as complete as the excellent Collins Birdguide but is still more than adequate (covering 500 species) and treats Caspian Gull as a separate species (first time I can remember seeing this). Its also smaller than Collins.

Both are priced at £9.99 and can be got cheaper off of Amazon.

Another worth looking at is Insects of Britain and Western Europe by Michael Chinery. This is published by Domino and is a revision of a book first out in 1986. It uses illustrations and looks like a nice book for sticking in a ruck sack whilst out.

Obviously there will be more specialist literature available (moths and Dragonflies for instance) but at £14.99 looks a nice book (I do wish it was Britain only though).

1 comment:

KAZ said...

And speaking of bumblebees - there was a woman on the radio this morning who had a beekeeper bring his bees to her house. They stung her on the knees and she insisted it cured her arthritis.
I believed her - isn't nature wonderful.

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