Bird books that I've seen in the past normally have a description of how the bird's song sounds, but to decipher a sound accurately from a string of words is difficult (for me at least). Hence why when I saw this book, complete with sounds you could hear, I got it. Also I thought it'd be good for my young children to play with so that they get interested in birds.
When the book arrived it was bigger than I thought it'd be. It is a big, glossy, heavy hardcover of a book; certainly not one you could easily take with you when you go out and about birdspotting, and not necessarily one you'd give to the kids to play with.
The book typically gives each bird a 2-page layout with a long bit of description about the bird and a nice glossy photo on the opposite page to go along with it. Sometimes there is an hand-drawn illustration too; some birds only get one page coverage. Sometimes there is an additional 2-page photo spread of a bird too. All of the pictures are beautifully taken and in full colour. They are also pictures I've never seen before (sometimes I've seen images shared between books) and they come with useful captions beneath them.
The sound player itself is easy to use. You basically cycle through the 180-odd sounds, pressing play on the one you want (or you can play all). This means you can't easily switch between one birdsong and another if they are far apart in number but the design aids with simplicity and keeps the amount of buttons that were required down to a minimum. There are instructions on how to use the player within the book too if you do feel that you wouldn't be able to pick it up so easily but it is really simple to use so don't worry about that. Also the sound player takes 3xAAA batteries which are included with the book. Once finished they are easily replaceable too.
There are 180-odd sounds in this book for 150 birds - this is because some birds have multiple sounds. For example the blackbird has three sounds: its song, its call and its alarm call. However despite all these sounds in reality the bird may make another call and thus you still may not be able to recognise sounds when out in the wild but that is the nature of birdsong I guess. Anyway I love reading the descriptions of the sounds of the birds now that I can listen to them at the same time. It certainly adds to my experience and understanding of what those words are describing.
What is missing in this book though is the little summaries that other bird books give you, such as a little map of Britain and Ireland indicating where the bird could be found and at what time of year, listings of their habitat, their size etc. But this can be found in the main text for each bird anyway whilst the summary tables can be found in other books as standard so you could use the two together.
As an alternative to this book you could get birdsong from off a website (e.g. RSPB) but I find websites harder to navigate than this book, although with its heaviness this book isn't necessarily ideal either.
Overall then a book for those that want to not just read about and see birds, but want to hear them too.
(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)
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