Review in Bird Watching August 2003
By Gordon Hamlett

THREE MEN were arguing about Sabine’s Gull. The first insisted it should be pronounced ’Say-bine’. The second preferred ’Sab-een’. ”Ah yes”, chipped in the third, ”but I think that you’ll find that 90% of all juveniles seen off the coast of Cornwall in autumn are pronounced ’Kittiwake’.”
	OK, so it’s an old joke, but it does illustrate a major problem. Identifying seabirds is not easy. Is there anyone who has not been highly impressed and/or extremely suspicious of birders who are seemingly afeing and sexing distant dots on the horizon while you are struggling to lock onto a Gannet loomimg out of the sea mist right in front of your face?
	So how do these experts do it, especially if you can’t make out many, if any, of the plumage details? Well, jizz has a lot to do with it; the shape and structure of a bird, as well as the way it behaves. That, plus experiance.
	An introductory chapter in this new guide gives lots of basic information about seawatching, such as how to judge size and how different light conditions change your perceptions. For exeample, Brent Geese are roughly the same size as Eiders but you would never guess from looking at them; the former look a lot larger, owing to differences in build and structure.
	The systematic section covers divers, grebes, tubenoses, cormorants, swans, geese, ducks, skuas, gulls, terns and auks. Each chapter starts off with a general introduction, highlighting which bits of the bird you should be paying particular attention to, before going off into individual species accounts.
	Gull fans might be interested to know that both Yellow-legged and Caspian Gulls are included. These accounts are split into sections on size, silhouette, flight and flocking and plumage, accompanied by several well-annotated colour photographs.
	There are more than 690 pictures in the book and, as with all flight shots, some are of better quality than others, though all illustrate their chosen point well. I was particularly taken with a somewhat fuzzy picture of an Arctic Skua and Long-tailed Skua next to each other, which shows perfectly the difference in structure.
	The text is full of useful nuggets of information. One I found particularly useful on a recent trip to Scotland was the old problem of sorting out distant Arctic and Common Terns. In Arctic Terns, the centre of gravity is under the chest, givin a long, tapered appearance to the body. Common Terns have their centre of gravity towards the belly, giving a much dumpier appearance. Absolutely spot on – so hopefully, far fewer ’Commic’ Terns in future.
	The trouble with jizz is that it is not always easy to put in words and if I had one criticism, then I would have liked to have seen the inclusion of some line drawings. A quick sketch of terns’ bodies, illustrating the point above would have been worth any numbers of words. Or, sticking with terns, how about a diagram showing their different feeding actions?
	The format of the book, in taking one species at a time, doesn’t really allow for side-by-side comparision of confusion species and this might be a good linking mecjanism in future editions. That apart, there is plenty to get your teeth into.
	Even the most avid seawatcher is going to find plenty of new information. For anyone just getting into the arcane art of seawatching, this book will prove a Godsend.