West Midland Bird Club Annual Report 2008

This publication is a nicely produced A5 paperback book printed on good-quality paper, which will last well as a reference on the shelf. The consistent use of coloured subheadings makes the otherwise quite dense text easy to read and it is enlivened throughout with small, but good-quality, drawings and photographs.

The WMBC annual report is somewhat unusual in that the editor has the no doubt nightmare-inducing task of getting records and write-ups from four independent county recorders (Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands) and it is much to his credit that he has maintained a pretty consistent standard throughout.

The report layout is pretty conventional, starting with a section on Birds and Weather, which is actually quite a useful short summary of the regional rarities for the year. The meat of the book is the Systematic List and species accounts, in the up-to-date BOU taxonomic order, and this displays the strengths and weaknesses of all such accounts. The strengths are a consistent year-on-year write-up of bird occurrences and counts, whilst the weaknesses, acknowledged by the editor at several points, reflect the partial nature, and probable inconsistency, of counts across such a large region and also the patchiness of the recording of breeding. On the other hand, he has done an excellent job of summarising some of the more complex information in tables by site and month, helping to build up an appreciation of the occurrence of quite a few species. There are also several short articles on various aspects of birding in the region, from ringing to the decline of Red Grouse, and a very useful site gazetteer, all of which adds value to this neat little work.