Review in Birdwatch 1/2004 (#139: 41)
By Steve Madge

The book is based on the expertise of three well-travelled Scandinavian seawatchers whose enthusiasm and fascination for the migration experience is clear: ”It is the impression of a powerful natural force, unaffected by worldly things, that characterises a fine day’s seawatching. Wave after wave of flocks pass determinedly on, paying no attention to the natural elements.”
	More functionally, there is excellent coverage of what we traditionally refer to as seabirds, namely divers, grebes, tubenoses, cormorants, skuas, gulls, terns and auks and allies. Each species has a concise yet authoritative text brimming with nuggets of field observation, much of which is not found in conventional field guides.
	These groups are augmented by a fine section on wildfowl. Scandinavian seawatchers witness incredible numbers of swans, geese and ducks migrating along the Baltic coasts, and the resultant fine selection of photographs is very pleasing. Highlights for me included being able to compare Eurasian and American Wigeon in flight, the superb shot of female Greater and Lesser Scaup flying side by side and the flying Garganey and Marbled Duck. The inclusion of Redhead, Canvasback and Ruddy and White-headed Ducks would have been nice for the sake of completeness, and it would have been useful to have seen more on Black and White-winged Scoter, rather than just the odd token shot of these Nearctic forms of Common and Velvet. It is difficult to know where to draw the line, but as Ross’s Goose gets a full page, why not the scoter?
	The first problem in a book like this is to decide what constitutes a European seabird and, as I’ve suggested already, I’m uncertain whether the coverage is comprehensive enough. Perhaps it is because my typically British hunger for photographs of albatrosses, Pterodroma petrels and flying vagrant Pacific auks is not fully sated here. Having said that, there is a super selection of shots showing the differences between Manx, Balearic and Yelkouan Shearwaters, and the shots of Little Shearwater are also very useful. Scopoli’s and Cape Verde Shearwaters could, however, have been dealt with more thoroughly.
	As stated in the foreword, a comprehensive work covering all vagrant European seabirds would have become too heavy to carry around (and no doubt too pricey), and it was intended for this book to be taken into the field as much as possible. But why then include White-faced Storm-petrel, Brown Booby, Red-billed Tropicbird and  Magnificent Frigatebird?
	In terms of format, this volume is something of a new departure from the normal Helm ‘family guides’. It is more than just a photographic collection covering the various groups of European seabirds in flight. The text is informative and thought-provoking, while even the often-ignored introductory chapters are full of sound advice and include many pertinent remarks concerning the identification process. As introductions tend to get bypassed, I would like to highlight a couple of these gems from the ‘Identified or Unidentified’ section of the ‘Basics of Field Identification’ chapter:
	”No birder can, despite technical advances in optical equipment, identify everything he/she sees ... do not worry about not being able to identify every bird – you are in good company. You are not an unskilled birder because of that, but rather a reliable birder with a clean conscience as you show that you are self-critical.”
”... be careful not to criticise birders who tend to call out a bird early which shows itself to be another species as it comes nearer. Everybody will make a hasty error sometimes, and it is better to call out a bird too early, even if it isn’t what you first suspected, than to call it out late, when not everyone will be able to see it well. And mistakes, if analysed properly, are useful learning experiences.”
	The book is so good that it’s tempting to ask for that little bit more. Surely anyone prepared to spend £35 on it would be willing to spend another £10 for a 30 per cent larger version with more thorough coverage? Roll on the next edition.