Antarctic Wildlife - A visitor’s guide to the wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula, Drake Passage a

I've been lucky enough to have been sent a review copy of a forthcoming guide to Antarctica wildlife which includes - of course! - lots of birds. The book is titled "Antarctic Wildlife - A visitor’s guide to the wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula, Drake Passage and Beagle Channel" and is published by WILDGuides. The author is birder / conservationist / photographer James Lowen. Sample pages of the new guide are to be found at: https://www.wildguides.co.uk/our-titles/all-titles/antarctic-wildlife-a-visitor-... . The book will be published in the northern spring.

For those not familiar with WILDGuides, they are a publisher worth patronising, not just because many of their guides are the best available for field identification, but also because profits from sale go to conservation NGOs - in this case "Save the Albatross Campaign".

Earlier this month I got to test this book in earnest, in the field, and was very impressed: as far as I know it is now about the best portable guide to identifying Antarctic wildlife. The other book that I found very useful - though as a cabin reference rather than a field guide - was Shirihai's Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife. Chester's Wildlife Guide to Chile also came in handy, as did Jaramillo's Birds of Chile (though the latter is missing some of the commoner birds of the Drake Passage, like Soft-plumaged Petrel). Lowen's book is out at the end of April and will be an essential guide for birders visiting Antarctica.

You go to Antarctica, and come back and tell us about the books? Have no pity for our feelings of envy, Chris, and tell us a little of how it was. Please?

Hehe, well affle I thought I would just offer my brief opinion of the books as that's the focus of LT, but of course the Antarctic is a very special place. I know I can't begin to convey what the place is like anything like as well as those great Antarctic chroniclers. Suffice to say that it was wonderful and unique, aesthetically stunning, and in many ways quite humbling - but an absolutely fascinating place for anyone interested in birds and wildlife. I've waited for many years for the opportunity to arise, and it more than fulfilled my expectations. Let's hope that the region can be reasonably well conserved in perpetuity in the face of the serious threats it faces.

Amen to that. I'd love to go, but I've already reached the age of rising travel insurance premiums, and as my wife is especially averse to both sea travel and cold, I think I'm going to have to make do with the books. Thanks for the link to Bluntisham Books on the other thread - their Heroic Age republications look interesting.

I posted brief reviews of Lowen's new book at: Amazon.co.uk (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1903657326) & Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Antarctic-Wildlife-Visitors-James-Lowen/dp/0691150338).

I'm just reading The Worst Journey in the World and am enjoying the descriptions of the scenery, particularly the colours, which Cherry describes so vividly. Did you (Chris) see incredible colours of the ice and sea at sunset?

Hello Ruth! The scenery in the Antarctic is just stunning and the ice does have some striking colours that you rarely see outside the polar regions. I didn't see too much sun, but I don't think Cherry-Garrard would have had grounds for complaint!

I recently finished a review copy of Lost Antarctica, which has plenty of descriptions of Antarctic avifauna. A stunning book on the south polar (and global) environment.