New Edition

                                                                              
1) Oddie, Bill. Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book. 2011. Portico. Hardbound: 144 pages. Price: GBP 9.99 (about $16.15 U.S.).

SUMMARY: Bird-watchers are tense, competitive, selfish, shifty, dishonest, distrusting, boorish, pedantic, unsentimental, arrogant and – above all – envious'. So says Bill Oddie, and he should know! This scurrilous little classic - unavailable for some years and now reissued - is a must for all those obsessed birders and twitchers (and as Bill relates, there is a mighty difference!) who trudge the moors and riverbanks, sewage farms and power stations, come gale or come shine, in search of that ever illusive rare beauty that no one else has spotted. The joy of Bill Oddie's book is that he has so obviously been there, and he dares to say in his knowledgeable and often hilarious way all the things that other b's and t's will recognize as true but which they have never dared to own up or admit to, even to themselves. Whether Bill is talking about equipment, apparel, sightings, cock-ups, the kind of places to go to and the places (and people) to avoid, the birds he's seen and the birds that got away, his enthusiasm is infectious and boundless - just those delightful qualities that make his regular TV series so very popular. Described by British Birdwatching as 'the funniest book on bird watching I have ever read' this is the one book that no serious birdwatcher can afford to leave out of the rucksack.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for every serious (and especially unserious!) Birdwatcher/birder!