Best Birdwatching Sites in Cornwall and Scilly by Sara McMahon and Nigel Hudson

Buy this book. It's a simple as that. No fuss, no nonsense, this is a volume that anyone planning a trip to one of the very best birding areas in Britain would do well to pack in the rucksack, even if they've been to the far southwest of England on countless occasions before. This 208 pages that make up Best Birdwatching Sites: Cornwall & Scilly are a "must have" and even birders in and around Cornwall and Scilly may find out about one or two little nooks and crannies that they may choose to investigate in the future. Headline over with, what do you get for your money and what do the authors know about the areas that they write about? Well, addressing the latter first, authors Sara McMahon and Nigel Hudson are very well placed (and very well informed) to write about the locations covered by the book.

During the early 1980s, Plymouth Polytechnic was a miniature hotbed of outstanding birding talent, giving the rather more fashionable University of East Anglia a run for its money, and winning too. If you were to choose the student life, and you were a birder, you aimed your sights on "the Poly" or "UEA". Throughout the 1980s and into the very early 1990s, Plymouth remained a significant draw to youthful birders with a ring-binder full of A-levels. One of those who decided that the Poly was the place for her was author Sara McMahon and goodness, how her subsequent birding experiences of Cornwall shine through in this book.

Covering Scilly is Nigel Hudson and, once again, his experience of arguably some of Britain's most beautiful (and most exciting) birding locations is as plain as day. A birder since the 1970s (cutting his teeth around his local patch at Weir Wood Reservoir), Nigel first landed on Scilly in 1981 and returned (like so many) for countless Octobers that followed. Then, after retiring in 2001, Nigel took the step that far fewer of the autumn hordes ever take, and moved to St. Mary's as a full-time resident, quickly becoming Secretary of the local bird group and then taking on the Recorder's job. If that wasn't enough, Nigel then became the BBRC Secretary last year.

As mentioned earlier, these two have impeccable credentials....

The book itself is jam-packed full of useful information without ever seeming cluttered. McMahon takes on 52 sites across Cornwall (covering 116 pages), while Hudson takes on the five main birding islands on Scilly (26 pages). Before tackling individual sites, Sara McMahon details what you could expect to see over the course of a birding year in the Duchy; each month is dealt with separately and is a super introduction to the county, especially for newcomers and those unfamiliar with Cornwall and its birding delights. A neat little summary of seawatching follows, including premier sites to try, before a precise guide as to how to use the book leads you to the meat on the bones.

Each of the 52 sites (listed in alphabetical order) that feature have at least two pages of information and maps, with some taking three (the Lizard and Marazion for instance) while the Hayle Estuary is rightly afforded six. The genuine wealth of information contained within the pages is superb. Everything you need to know is listed. Key Points details essentials such as opening times, the terrain and wheelchair access, amongst other things. Target Birds deals with exactly that and what your chances are of seeing them and occasional species options are also listed. A thorough run-through of background information (covering the area, useful tips on how to find some of the species you may be looking for and expanding on key points) is clearly written and easy to follow. The superb little maps detail trails, hides or other key points on the particular area, while a thumbnail map shows the location of the site within the county. Alongside the map come access details (for car or public transport) and the individual site information is so well constructed that as well as suggesting optimum times to visit, OS Map suggestions and grid references are also included too. For good measure, the Map symbols are clear and simple to follow. After the site location details are complete, useful pointers on the best sites for wheelchair users follows along with the often-ignored issue of sites accessible only by public transport. This is seriously detailed stuff, but none of it overwhelms—indeed Sara's chatty and informative writing style lends itself perfectly to this book and many, many birding folk will benefit from her work here.

So to Scilly. The same format is, quite rightly, followed and after a brief introduction on what makes the islands so special, we find detail of land ownership (pretty important on Scilly), island characteristics and getting to and from, and then around, the islands. The introduction continues with a summary of advice on the terrain, inter-island boats and wheelchair access. Then, just as with the section on Cornwall, comes a month-by-month breakdown of what you may see, or should look out for, throughout the year and where to investigate. The detailed island-by-island breakdown follows. Again, the pleasing formula of Key Points, Background information, birding tips and a map is used. Bryher, St. Martin's and St. Agnes with Gugh are afforded a couple of pages each, with three and a half for Tresco and St. Mary's (unsurprisingly) having six pages. Nigel's style, similar to Sara's, is really readable and you just know that he's writing from experience—as he writes of the walks around my very favourite Scilly island, St. Agnes, I can imagine, so clearly, the breathtaking views, the smell of the sea, and happily recall the views of Hermit Thrush at Chapel Fields before the boats appeared, the scrum nearby for the Yellow-browed Bunting, finding a Dusky Warbler by the Parsonage gate, oh, and the dismal sinking feeling of missing that male Caspian Plover out on Wingletang.... (In the St. Agnes section we find a new species unveiled too: the 2008 Pallid Wheatear at Porth Killier; a rare proof-reading error to slip through the net.) The pages detailing St. Mary's and Tresco feature a couple of suggested walks around the larger islands and, again, Nigel's warm and occasionally anecdotal style fits perfectly. The Scilly section ends with information on the summer pelagics run out of St. Mary's and numerous useful phone numbers (covering island cabs, travel to and from the islands, inter-island boats and a list of public loos and the all-important cafes—Carn Vean for a cream tea anyone?)

Next in this exhaustive but never exhausting work is the checklist. What a marvellous roll-call of honour this is, with some of the most fantastic rarities ever seen in the UK strewn across page after page—from Red-billed Tropicbird to Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, the list is superlative—while the only British records of Varied Thrush, Wilson's Warbler, Wood Thrush, Short-toed Eagle, Magnolia Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler and Yellow-throated Vireo are mouth-watering in the extreme and emphasise the incredible quality of birds found in the far southwest. However (there had to be one...) it is a little disappointing to see the authors "removing subspecies from our Checklist" with "the exception of a handful of gulls, geese, wagtails and Bluethroats". In the text, the authors explain that they have decided on these forms remaining as "most birders can distinguish (the forms) in the field without too much difficulty". This is such a shame! It could be argued that this statement doesn't really hold water with regard to the checklist anyway—space is afforded to American Goshawk and Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk in old money) but not to both Green and Two-barred Greenish Warblers (arguably easier to pick out than an American Goshawk at least) and the stunning male Caspian Stonechat—form variegata at Porthgwarra (in October 1985)—is ignored, but Eastern Stonechat isn't. Of course, this list is not a definitive work on the avifauna of the county and islands, but those tiny extras would have made this terrific piece of work better still. The BOU official "split" of American Herring Gull may have come too late for the checklist (it is still listed as L. a. smithsonianus) while some may find Dark-throated Thrush a little frustrating as it is only Black-throated Thrush that has occurred (and one of many very neat Alan Harris line drawings is titled as a Black-throated too). The checklist is also home to one of the very few "typos" that stuck out through the book: "theyeri" rather than thayeri.

The book concludes with some definitions of bird groups used in the book, a list of useful contacts, and a double end-page map of Cornwall showing the location of all sites featured (with an inset map of Scilly to boot). A four-page glossary of birdspeak will raise a smile—dudes and twitchers receiving gentle ribbing in equal measure (and with tongue firmly in cheek, it seems as if one eleven-letter "s" word, once synonymous with Cornwall was, er, suppressed!).

As a Devon boy, living in the west of the county and with Cornish parents, I spent hundreds of hours birding as a teenager and more across the Tamar in Kernow and on Scilly. Many more birding hours have followed on trips there in the two decades that have followed and, despite the good work set down by Devon legends Dave Norman and Vic Tucker in the Helm "Where to Watch Birds" series way back in the mid 1980s, this is now the book that you need if heading to the region. Sara McMahon and Nigel Hudson have done a first-class job. The word "essential" is often rather overblown and overused—but not here. As mentioned at the start of the review: buy this book. It's as simple as that.