| Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton | John Beaufoy Publishing | 2022 | Paperback | 160 Pages | 200 Colour Photos | ISBN: 9781913679255 | £14.99p |
The Publisher’s View:
A photographic identification guide to 150 species of garden insect most commonly found in Britain and North-West Europe. Packed with information, written with huge enthusiasm and illustrated with incredible close-up photos, An Identification Guide to Garden Insects of Britain and North-West Europe shines a spotlight on the insects in your garden.
The introduction covers how to attract insects to your garden, the insect lover’s year, a description of the parts of an insect and details of the insect orders described.
For each species, there is a keenly observed description to help you identify even the smallest creature, as well as one or two photographs labelled with distinguishing features. There are details of its life cycle from egg to adult, a calendar showing the time of year when the adult can be seen and star facts that give further proof of insects’ fascinating lives.
The Authors:
Dominic Couzens is an award-winning nature writer with 40 books and hundreds of published articles to his name. His best-known books include The Secret Lives of Garden Birds, Britain’s Mammals (WildGuides), Songs of Love & War and Save Our Species, while he contributes to magazines and newspapers, such as Bird Watching, Nature’s Home, BBC Countryfile and The Guardian.
Gail Ashton is an award-winning wildlife photographer, writer and illustrator specialising in invertebrates, particularly insects and spiders. Her work has been published in books, magazines and nature journals
Fatbirder View:
I’ve been waiting for this, even if I didn’t know it!
Like lots of birders I take an interest in the wild world in all its forms. During lockdown when my whole world was my tiny urban garden I quizzed every insect I saw. I’ve accumulated a good few books on a number of insect orders. Bees, Dragonflies, Butterflies, Ladybirds & Hoverflies to name but a few. I’ve managed to ID a lot of the one’s who grace my flower beds and wild corners… but not everything is easy. Especially when you have many hundreds of choices like with hoverflies. Moreover, I’ve yet to invest in books on Coleoptera etc. A few species, even one’s I’ve taken a reasonable photo of, elude me.
What do I need? I generic bug book that has the commoner garden species all in one place.
Not only is it spot on in that respect, I bet its timely too… not just birders take an interest in the wildworld and many ordinary, non-obsessive folk want to know what just nibbled their petunias or chowed down on their brassicas.
Do I have any quibbles? Well, perhaps the teeniest – some species have a lot of common names and it would be good to see a few alternatives. What Dominic & co called a ‘tiger’ hoverfly (it’s stripy thorax), I’ve always known as a ‘footballer’ hoverfly for its striped shirt.
Nit-picking aside, and given quality writers and excellent illustrations, I suspect this will get well-thumbed and is set to became a classic.
Fatbirder