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The ultimate field guide to the birds of the Middle East, an indispensable companion for any traveller to the region.
The Middle East – the region stretching from Cyprus and the Levant to Iran, including Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula, plus Socotra – has a wonderfully broad and diverse avifauna, featuring a host of wintering and passage migrants, enigmatic breeders, and even a few endemics that occur nowhere else.
This authoritative book covers more than 895 species recorded in the Middle East, including details of all regular visitors and breeding species, from the Purple Sunbird to the Northern Bald Ibis. Featuring 180 stunning colour plates by three of the world's leading bird illustrators, this practical guide also includes concise species accounts describing key identification features, status, range, habitat and voice with fully updated distribution maps for each species.
Written by three of the leading lights in regional ornithology and conservation, this fully revised and expanded guide is an essential reference for any birder living in or visiting the Middle East.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
- The region and species covered
- Escapes and introduced birds
- Sequence, taxonomy and nomenclature
- Illustrations and identification text
- Bird topography
- Voice
- Habitat
- Maps and status
- Code of conduct
Species Accounts
References and further reading
Checklist of the birds of the Middle East
Index
Richard Porter has been involved with birds in the Middle East since 1966 and is an adviser on bird conservation for BirdLife International. He is the author or co-author of several books on the Middle East and the groundbreaking Flight Identification of European Raptors.
Oscar Campbell is a naturalist, bird conservationist and chemistry teacher. For more than a decade, he has been chairman of the Emirates Bird Records Committee. In 2013, he was awarded the Sheikh Mubarak bin Mohammed Prize for Natural History.
AbdulRahman Al-Sirhan is a Kuwaiti birder, ornithologist and photographer. His passion for birds began at the age of 7, and he later set up a photography blog which featured his photos of birds in the region. AbdulRahman now leads guided bird tours in Kuwait and was also involved in the translation of the Helm Field Guide Birds of the Middle East into Arabic.
John Gale is a world-renowned bird illustrator with many books to his credit.
Mike Langman is a world-renowned bird illustrator with many books to his credit.
"The Middle East remains an exciting and beautiful region, where it will hopefully one day be possible for everyone to travel around overland and in complete freedom. The people and birds of the area deserve it. This book is an ideal travel companion."
– Gert Ottens, Dutch Birding
Reviews of the second edition:
"Richard Porter and Simon Aspinall have extensively reworked the 1996 birders bible, with the result being an almost entirely new book to delight bird enthusiasts in the Middle East."
– Centre for Middle Eastern Plants (5th October 2010)
"this book is essential to anyone visiting the region and contains a mine of contemporary information; we should feel privileged to have such an excellent field guide to aid any perplexing identification issues."
– Birdwatch (November 2010)
"Middle East aficionados will warmly welcome this revised second edition of an outstanding guide to the region's birds."
– Bulletin of the British Ornithologist's Union (2010)
