Birdwatching Guide to Crete

This book may be ok for those who can already identify the birds referred to, but save the odd monochrome sketch, it is of no help to an amateur.
From the title I'd hoped to find photos, or at least well drawn coloured images of birds I can expect to see, but to no avail.
I also agree with the other review of this book that the sites given are a bit arbitary.
Sadly, I can't recommend it.

A great disappointment (14/14 people found this helpful)

These comments are based on three British birders using the Revised 5th Edition (2001), as our guide for a weeks birding in April 2003. It was our first visit to Crete.

Having successfully used Graham Hearl's excellent guide to Mallorca in the same series, we were very disappointed by this book. For a book in its 5th edition we expected to have little trouble finding our way to and around the sites listed. However, some of the site descriptions proved to be very vague, resulting in wasted time trying to identify where we were supposed to go.

In spite of much searching we were unable to find any comprehensive, detailed maps of Crete. This means that to be effective, the book needs good quality sketch maps for most, if not all, sites. The sketch maps that are included are often hard to relate to features on the ground, even though the maps look believable before you arrive. Cheap, portable, GPS is available to everyone now, so a longitude/latitude fix for each site should be easy to add, and would help immeasurably to determine if you are at least starting from the correct place.

The species lists for each location can be misleading. For example, Black Stork is given in the list for Mylo River. When you look at the species list at the back of the book you find that there have only been 6 records in Crete. I accept that the author found one at this site in 1991, but it hardly rates as a species a visiting birder can expect to see!

There are a few sites that appear to have been included in earlier editions and have been left in despite them no longer being of interest.

In the end, if you are planning a birding trip to Crete, you probably need this book since there is no real competition from other publications. I guess that until a Cretan resident writes a new birding guide, visitors will have to manage as best they can with this one. Hopefully, other users of the book will also send the author additions and updates to improve future editions.

Stephanie Coghlan

Reader Reviews:

A disappointment (0/0 people found this helpful)

A great disappointment (14/14 people found this helpful)

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