Collins Bird Guide: The Most Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe

Product Information

Touch Press has built a strong reputation for producing high-quality, intuitive apps in recent years and the company's work to convert the Collins Bird Guide to interactive form is no exception.

These gripes aside, there can be no doubt that the third edition of the Collins Bird Guide represents another significant step forward in terms of its coverage of the region's birds. Eleven pages of introductory material are followed by the book's main content: 366 pages of text and colour paintings. However, the beauty of apps is that they can be continuously updated, meaning any niggles are often ironed out in future updates.Given the resounding success of the Collins Bird Guide over the past 15 years and its undisputed position as the region's top field guide, the potential for a quality app version was always great. It was a resounding success in its first two incarnations and the indications are that the third edition – initially published as a hardback version in November 2022, but now also available in paperback – is set to continue this trend. Additional data can be bought separately; the first such package being a set of distribution maps for 271 species, from the British Trust for Ornithology's Bird Atlas 2007–11. Highlights include new or updated plates for West African Crested, Royal and Saunders's Tern, Black Redstart, harriers and many others. I found changes to illustrations and/or text for the grouse, divers, several groups of raptors, terns, owls, swifts, woodpeckers, swallows, redstarts, flycatchers, tits, finches and buntings.

The Collins Bird Guide app is destined to become a real triumph, the ultimate in field guide apps — and deservedly so.

Leaving behind the classic field guide layout (text on one side of a two-page spread and illustrations on the other), the app takes on a three-tier structure. As well as being an invaluable tool in the field and as a go-to reference, the harmony struck by the smooth interface and long-celebrated content makes the Collins Bird Guide app a continuing marvel in this eagerly anticipated Android release. The same applies to another 'contemporary' vagrant, Elegant Tern, which too is elevated to the main accounts and afforded coverage of a range of plumages. The app can be set to five languages – English, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish – and contains bird names in 18 languages, including Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian.