This is the first single volume guide ever devoted to the eastern Asian avifauna. The eastern Asian region, centring especially on the major islands off the continental coast (including Japan and Taiwan) and the immediately adjacent areas of the Asian continent from Kamchatka in the north and including the Korean Peninsula are an important centre of endemism. Birds endemic to this region include representatives of many of the major families, from the world's largest eagle - Steller's Sea Eagle - to the tiny Formosan Firecrest. The east Asian continental coast and the offshore islands also form one of the world's major international bird migration routes, especially for waterfowl, shorebirds and raptors, while the east Asian continental mainland itself is home to a wide range of species little known to western ornithologists such as Scaly-sided Merganser, Oriental Stork and Mugimaki Flycatcher. The guide features the most up-to-date text available, which, in conjunction with extensive colour plates throughout, facilitates the field identification of all of the species known from the region. Colour distribution maps enhance the text by providing a visual analysis of the summer, winter and migratory ranges of all species.

Literary Nonfiction. Northeast Asia Studies. Environmental Studies. Korea's birds deserve a wider audience. The country's geographical location, topography, temperate climate, and wealth of diverse habitats combine to support an extraordinarily attractive avifauna. Many visitors to Korea see the impressive metropolitan centers of Seoul or Busan, and others may visit Jejudo Island's black sand beaches or hike the popular mountain trails. Fewer see the more hidden parts of the country: the western offshore islands, the scattered and diminishing wetlands, the picturesque east coast fishing villages, the mountain hamlets and the river valleys. We can glimpse these places through the birds that live there. Moreover, we can glimpse something else--hints of Korea's people, culture, and history. A picture of a bird yields a narrow but genuine window into a country's identity. What a country's arts or folklore or language says about nature--or says by means of nature--has a special authenticity. Above all, there are the birds themselves, in all their many types of beauty. This book seeks to introduce the birds: through photographs, through descriptions of their lives, and through the ways our different cultures, Western and Asian both, perceive them.

This eagerly awaited guide offers the most comprehensive treatment ever published on the gulls of Europe, Asia and North America. A total of 43 species is treated, and every species is described in considerable detail, with a full description of each plumage and racial variation. Gulls are intelligent, versatile, opportunistic, and ecological generalists. As such, they exploit a variety of habitats, both coastal and inland, take a wide range of food, and are often extremely abundant. They are also great wanderers, with several American species regularly appearing in Western Europe and vice versa. As well as identification criteria, this book includes an up-to-date assessment of the range and status of every species, together with information on patterns of vagrancy. This important guide is published at a critical time in the development of dull taxonomy. The large, white-headed forms occurring in the region comprise a superspecies complex, with the precise relationships between the various components still under considerable debate. A thorough illustrative and textual treatment of the group is much needed, and this book provided the most complete overview of the complex. The text is complemented not only by superb colour paintings by Hans Larrson, but also by a large selection of colour photographs, sourced from some of the finest bird photographers in the world. This is the essential reference to a fascinating and endlessly challenging group of birds.