Birds of the Middle East 3rd Edition (2024) by Richard Porter, Oscar Campbell and AbdulRahman Al-Sirhan. Helm Field Guides series. Bloomsbury, London. Soft cover: 400 pages. ISBN: 9781399401968. 14 x 21.6 cm (5.5 x 8.5″). Also available as an eBook and published in USA by Princeton University Press.
Review by Frank Lambert
This much-anticipated, fully updated field guide to Birds of the Middle East covers all species that have been documented in Saudi Arabia, Yemen (including the Socotra archipelago), Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey (Türkiye), and the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. More than 850 species are illustrated on 180 plates, and there are 646 colour distribution maps that differentiate between resident, breeding, non-breeding and passage ranges. It is a traditional field guide, with the distribution maps and species accounts opposite the illustrations. This guide also features QR codes that are linked to online vocalisations, but voices are also described.
Countries covered by
Birds of the Middle East.
Note the Socotra archipelago is included
Before delving more into the book, it is worth mentioning the authors. Richard Porter, whose enthusiasm is undiminished even as he reaches his 80s (I regularly bump into him birding his local patch in Norfolk), has been a renowned and highly respected birder since I started birding. Indeed, Richard Porter is legendary for his birding, depth of knowledge and promotion of conservation efforts in the Middle East, a region he has devoted his career to over the last five (or more!) decades.
The landmark field guide Flight Identification of European Raptors (1976), was an inspiration to many, and proved very useful for identifying raptors during an overland trip through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to the Indian subcontintent during in 1978-1979. Two of the authors, Richard Porter and Steen Christensen, later collaborated on the first edition of Birds of the Middle East.
With the first edition published in 1996, and the second in 2010, this third edition of an acclaimed field guide has a sound basis. Many birders will already have a previous edition since it has been the go-to guide for anyone visiting the Middle East for a long time, although some of the more recent spin-offs (Field Guide to the Birds of Oman 2017, Field Guide to Birds of the United Arab Emirates 2020, Field Guide to the Birds of Cyprus 2020), have been useful in particular countries. Nevertheless, for anyone who browses through this book, it rapidly becomes clear that this is a fully updated guide, and a better option than any of the earlier editions or spin-offs.
Socotra Golden-winged Grosbeak, split since the previous edition, is now fully depicted and described in the text
Illustrations are of course one of the most important components of any field guide, and with four highly respected and competent artists responsible for almost all illustrations, (John Gale, Mike Langman, Brian Small and Alan Harris), the plates are all very pleasing. Whilst some of the illustrations have been lightly modified, there are many new illustrations in the 3rd edition. Some of these illustrations are from other Helm field guides, such as Birds of Central Asia, Birds of the Horn of Africa and Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, but others are new. Paintings of seabirds such as Tropical Shearwater, Fea’s Petrel, Soft-plumaged Petrel, Scopoli’s Shearwater are all different from those in the previous edition, and there are new illustrations of larger white-headed gulls.
The many species of white-headed gulls in the Middle East are confusingly hard to identify, even with this new guide, but adult Sooty Gull is not! (photo © Lars Petersson)
Among ‘landbirds’, there are new illustrations for Ruddy Shelduck, rufous morphs of Common and Lesser Cuckoo, Coal Tit, Eurasian Nuthatch, Violet-backed and Brahminy Starlings, Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, Naumann’s Thrush, Arabian and Dunn’s Lark and Red-rumped Swallow, to name a selection. For some species, not only have existing paintings been revised or repainted, but there are now additional illustrations to show other ages or plumages (e.g. Ultramarine Flycatcher, some wagtails, Blyth’s and Richard’s Pipit, Amur and Siberian Stonechat and various shrikes).
In some genera or groups, all or nearly all the illustrations are new, including for swifts, white-eyes, warblers (all Locustella, Iduna, Hippolais, Acrocephalus, Curruca and Sylvia), and all wheatears. Furthermore, many of the illustrations in this edition have been enlarged to fill much of the space that was found on plates in the 2nd edition.
Great Reed Warbler is one of the many warblers with completely new illustrations (photo © Nik Borrow).
The preamble to this guide is very brief, containing a few paragraphs on, for example, vagrants, escapes and introduced birds, endemics, and conservation status. There is of course a political map of the region, which is not particularly useful. Unfortunately, Helm guides rarely include a more useful, topographical map that birders might want to refer to. As with all modern field guides, there is a brief guide about how to use the text and maps, and a line drawing to show bird topography.
Abyssinian Roller is one of many African species that just reaches the Middle East in the south of the region (photo © Frank Lambert)
One feature introduced in this book that I have not come across in previous field guides, are the QR codes to voice. These codes direct you to recordings on xeno-canto.org, taking you to the species rather than an individual recording. The value of this feature is tenuous, however, since if you have an internet connection (which is obviously required to use a QR code), you could simply go to xeno-canto yourself to find the relevant recordings quite quickly. As taxonomy changes, some of the QR codes may no longer point to the correct taxa.
If, for example, some of the distinctive endemic subspecies of Eurasian Jay are ever split, or the buryi subspecies of Streaked Scrub Warbler, then the QR code will no longer lead you to the voices of those taxa.
At the rear of the book there is a useful list of references, by country, and a simple Checklist for the birds included in the book.
Asir Magpie, not recognised as a full species until recently, now has its own full image, map and text.
Arabian Green Bee-eater is one of the endemics that has been split since publication of the 2nd edition (photo © Lars Petersson).
Most of the book, 360 pages, are devoted to the species accounts. The names are almost all from the IOC v13.2 list (mid 2023) although the sequence followed is the same as that from the second edition of the book, which is probably more familiar to most users. Whilst the second edition of Birds of the Middle East included about 820 species, 100 more than in the first edition, the third edition depicts and describes more than 850 species (more than 895 according to the Bloomsbury website, although this is probably a mistake!). This increase reflects newly recognised splits and new occurrences, including vagrants, that have been documented in the 14 years between editions.
Thirty-eight species are considered to be endemic to the region covered, although Sinai Rosefinch is also in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Another 10 species are breeding endemics, migrating out of the region when not breeding, and a further 17 species are near endemic, so are of special interest to visiting birders.
Abd al-Kuri Sparrow is one of the most difficult endemics to see, being confined to the Socotra archipelago (photo © Lars Petersson).
Not only have text and illustrations been extensively updated, but also many of the maps. These are all colour-coded, but sadly do not include topographical features. Comparing the maps between editions (e.g., of See-see Partridge) gives one a sense of the tremendous amount of new distributional information that has accumulated in the past decade. There are new or significantly changed maps for many species, including for example for Harlequin Quail, Marbled Duck, Arabian Grey (formerly part of Southern Grey) Shrike, Trumpeter Finch, Desert Finch, and Pale Rock Sparrow, to mention just a few.
Some of the species new to this edition are vagrants, but of more interest are those species that are new due to splitting, such as Desert Owl (split from Omani Owl, and formerly lumped under the English name ‘Hume’s Owl’), Cyprus Scops Owl, Asir Magpie, Arabian Green Bee-eater, Arabian Lark, Turkestan Short-toed Lark, Basalt Wheatear, Amur Stonechat, Delicate Prinia and Socotra Golden-winged Grosbeak.
Where more than one subspecies occurs, some of the most distinctive subspecies have a full species account, including Steppe Buzzard Buteo b. vulpinus, Lilith Owl Athene Noctua lilith, Eastern Nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos golzii/africana, Black-headed Wagtail Motacilla flava feldegg and Eastern Cinereous Bunting Emberiza cineracea semenowi (three of these taxa have their own maps, but two don’t).
Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse is one of six species of sandgrouse that breed in the Middle East, along with many other desert and semi-desert species (photo © Frank Lambert)
Apart from native species, the book includes 22 species that are established due to deliberate or accidental release, including two mynas, three parrots and six species of Ploceus weaver (there is, however, one native species too: Ruppell’s Weaver in SW Saudi Arabia and adjacent Yemen). Ten species for which there are doubtful records, but which could potentially occur, are also included, such as Egyptian Plover, Azure Tit, Siberian Rubythroat and Great Rosefinch. One species that has occurred in the region since the species accounts were finalised is Southern Carmine Bee-eater, a vagrant to Turkey, being too late to include except in the checklist.
The review author recording bird sounds in Saudi Arabia
The is certainly the best available field guide to the birds of the Middle East. The species accounts are concise yet detailed, and the maps and illustrations are excellent. It is relatively small, easily fitting into a small bag, and is easy to use. And there is always the option of buying the eBook if you are worried about weight. Whilst it would be inadvisable to go birding in some countries in the Middle East at the time of writing, Turkey, Oman and Saudi Arabia are all easy and as safe as anywhere to visit. Saudi Arabia was the first country that I visited after the pandemic, and I was surprised at how easy it was to enter the country, pick up a hire car and drive around, right down to near the border with Yemen. Turkey, too, still provides some phenomenal birding opportunities despite the huge changes related to industrialisation and agricultural expansion since I first went there in the early 1980s. The Middle East is a fascinating region to bird, and well worth multiple visits!
