For a long time within our group the RSPB Handbook of British Birds has been popular with beginners and others for the clarity of its text and the fact that it is one page per bird.This makes it good for many new to the game as it is not so overpowering as some.Our copies in the car were getting very dog eared as we passed them around quite a lot so on our visit to Fairburn Ings today we got a copy of the new 4th edition,a great improvement on what we thought was an already good book.The in flight pictures of birds of prey and waders to scale looked pretty good to me as well as more up to date info.Even though it does not have the number of species as say,the Collins guide, it is worthy of a place on most birders book shelves,well worth a tenner and well done to the RSPB for this guide.