Birds of Europe

with North Africa and the Middle East

by Lars Jonsson

Birds of Europe, or ‘Jonsson’ as we used to simply call it, was simply the best one volume field identification guide to birds when it was first published in 1992 and still holds its head up today. Lars Jonsson has remained my favourite bird artist ever since. He has an amazing ability to capture the jizz of a bird, something the mainly wooden portrayals in many a competitors guide fail to equal.

In his foreword to Birds of Europe, Lars Jonsson records that when he was working on illustrations for a Birds of Sea and Coast volume, there were no pictures of juvenile waders in the available field guides. His subsequent volumes went on to address that shortfall

It is one of the few volumes that has actually left my bookshelves to accompany me on my travels. To offer some additional protection beyond its hardback cover, I covered my volume with a protective (sic) sheet of stick on clear film and this book has spent hundreds of days in the field with me, becoming suitably battered as a result. Sadly, I now view its 985g as far too hefty to be carried on a hike today.

During 1976-80 five volumes appeared in Sweden under the title Fåglar i Naturen (Birds in the Wild), these books were later translated into English (my English volumes are shown above) and dealt with European birds, with a few key species from Turkey and North Africa. Each book dealt with a different habitat and geographical region. In the 1980s it was decided to put the contents together in to a single volume. Most illustrative plates were redone for Birds of Europe, along with new maps and text

Book from my shelves:

Birds of Europe: With North Africa and the Middle East, Lars Jonsson. Translated by David Christie. Christopher Helm, 1992. ISBN 0-7136-8096-2