Thank god for that-I wondered what this thread was all about when I read the title!!
'Best Days with British Birds' by Malcolm Ogilvie and Stuart Winter. Basically an account of different peoples 'best days' birding. Finding rarities, numbers of birds etc
Picked my copy up in an Oxfam shop for £1.
A good book for the bedside-dont try to read it all in one go-it will only make you jealous!
The Bedside Book of Birds an Avian Miscellany by Graeme Gibson.
Found this book on the bookshelf in the cottage on holliday. It's basically a collection of myths, legends, stories and letters with a bird connection. Loads of ancient tales from all over the world. Audobon, Darwin, Coleridge among them. Tales of bird behaviour around the trenches and bombsites during the wars. Natives being sent out to catch Birds of Paradise and keep them alive, they never lived longer than 3 days in a cage apparently!
Austalian aborigines call Cranes "Brolga". The name of a dancing girl who was turned into a Crane by an evil magician who was forbidden from marrying her. This is why Cranes "dance".
