Back in 2017 when I was reading Ray Reedman’s Lapwings, Loons and Lousy Jacks; The How and Why of Bird Names, I found myself not so much simply reading it as relaxing into it, as one would a particularly comfy chair in a cozy room. Being both interested in natural history and antiquities, the opportunity to luxuriate in a continual flow of stories recounting how a wide selection of bird species were given their respective names was a true delight.
Consequently, when the news reached me that Mr. Reedman had written another book on the subject, also, like his previous Lapwings, published by Pelagic Publishing, my pocket notebook was immediately deployed and a note duly made (as the motto of the journal Notes & Queries instructs us: “When found, make a note of”).
Mr, Reedman’s new The Vanishing Mew Gull; A Guide to the Bird Names of the Western Palaearctic presents its readers with explanations of the names, both scientific and common, of all the birds of the Western Palaearctic, as recorded in the latest taxonomic scheme followed by the International Ornithological Congress. Whereas Lapwings was more relaxed and conversational, this new book is decidedly more scholarly and therefore very well-suited to use by researchers as a reference guide to the subject. However this is by no means to say that it is not suitable for a nice sit-down with a cup of tea for a relaxing as well as edifying bit of reading – to an interested naturalist or birdwatcher, it is absolutely spot-on for just such a purpose.
I very much look forward to losing myself repeatedly and often in its pages.
