Undiscovered Owls – a Sound Approach Guide

If I’m honest I’ve never had much luck with owls. Wherever I go in the world you can bet that I usually miss out on seeing even the common ones. Despite this constant needle in my side, I am rather fond of them, as I suspect are many birders around the world and they always brighten up a day or enhance a night out birding.

As a big fan of the Sound Approach series of books and e-books I was naturally excited when a review copy of this book landed with a thud on my desk. Beautifully produced and accompanied by four CDs the book looks and feels as good as its predecessors.

Led by expert sound-recordist Magnus Robb, the Sound Approach team have travelled the length and breadth of the Western Palearctic listening and recording owls in their natural habitats and using both physical and morphological differences as well as vocalisation differences have proposed potential undiscovered owl forms within the region.

In just under 300 pages and nine chapters, the book adopts a rather liberal taxonomy, recognising 27 species. For example, Barn Owl is split into four species (Common, Slender-billed, Madeiran & Cape Verde).

There’s a great deal of information in each chapter and includes some superb photography, as well as lots of sonograms to illustrate the points being made. The text is extremely readable and the reader gets a real sense of the adventures (and frustrations) the team must have had in getting all these recordings.

I’ve already spent many evenings with this book and the accompanying CDs and there is still much more to learn and enjoy. I only wish all books gave me as much pleasure.