 The cover of volume 1 of the full edition | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 1977–96 (Oxford University Press) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
The Birds of the Western Palearctic (full title Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic; often referred to by the initials BWP) is a nine-volume ornithological handbook covering the birds of the western portion of the Palearctic zoogeographical region.
Earlier books of comparable scope include:
The Birds of the Western Palearctic is a comprehensive regional avifauna for the Western Palearctic. It consists of 9 volumes, the first published in 1977 and the ninth in 1994. The main editor for the first five volumes was Stanley Cramp. [1] Cramp died in 1987 and the subsequent volumes were edited by Duncan Brooks and Christopher Perrins. BWP's format and breadth influenced the development of regional avifaunas for other parts of the world, notably The Birds of Africa .
The titles of the nine volumes were:
A two-volume Concise Edition was produced in 1998. Both the full and concise editions were published by Oxford University Press (OUP).
The boundary used for the region included Iceland, but not Greenland; all of Macaronesia (islands off Portugal and North Africa); North Africa; the northern parts of the Arabian peninsula; Iraq and Kuwait, but not Iran; and Russia west of the Urals. A number of subsequent papers have questioned the appropriateness of this boundary, particularly its southern and southeastern delimitations, among them Martins & Hirschfeld (1994). [2] Martins and Hirschfeld published a more detailed paper in 1998, discussing the boundary in Iran and the Arabian peninsula. They concluded that the mountainous western and northern areas of Iran, and the Arabian peninsula, except for two small enclaves in the south, should be included in the Western Palearctic. [3] Ullman (2000) disagreed with their conclusions regarding the Arabian enclaves, however, arguing that their depauperate avifauna, when compared to species-rich areas in northeast Africa, justified inclusion of the whole of Arabia in the Western Palearctic. [4] Roselaar (2006), analysing the breeding distributions of 1037 passerine bird species in the Palearctic region, and northern parts of the Afrotropical and Oriental regions, also proposed a southern boundary somewhat to the south of that used by BWP. He excluded southernmost parts of Arabia, albeit with a slightly different border to that used by Martins & Hirschfeld. [5]
A journal, BWP Update, was published for a number of years following the completion of BWP.
Three electronic versions of BWP have been produced. The first, produced by OUP, suffered from a number of technical problems. [6] The second, known as "BWPi", was produced by BirdGuides Ltd. This included the full text of the nine volumes, the Concise Edition, all updates from BWP Update, new video and audio, and recent taxonomical changes. [7] The third version was released as an iOS app by NatureGuides in 2020 with an integrated video library and updated taxonomy, though distribution and population data were not updated. [8]
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The woodchat shrike is a member of the shrike family Laniidae. It can be identified by its red-brown crown and nape. It is mainly insectivorous and favours open wooded areas with scattered trees such as orchards, particularly when there is bare or sandy ground. The woodchat shrike breeds in southern Europe, the Middle East and northwest Africa, and winters in tropical Africa.
The European goldfinch or simply the goldfinch is a small passerine bird in the finch family that is native to Europe, North Africa and western and central Asia. It has been introduced to other areas, including Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.
The curlew sandpiper is a small wader that breeds on the tundra of Arctic Siberia.
The rock sparrow or rock petronia is a small passerine bird in the sparrow family Passeridae. It is the only member of the genus Petronia. It breeds on barren rocky hills from the Iberian peninsula and western north Africa across southern Europe and through the Palearctic Siberia and north and central China. It is largely resident in the west of its range, but Asian birds migrate to more southerly areas, or move down the mountains.
The Mongolian finch, also known as the Mongolian trumpeter finch, is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae.
The blackstart is a chat found in desert regions in North Africa, the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. It is resident throughout its range.
The Western Palaearctic or Western Palearctic is part of the Palaearctic realm, one of the eight biogeographic realms dividing the Earth's surface. Because of its size, the Palaearctic is often divided for convenience into two, with Europe, North Africa, northern and central parts of the Arabian Peninsula, and part of temperate Asia, roughly to the Ural Mountains forming the western zone, and the rest of temperate Asia becoming the Eastern Palaearctic. Its exact boundaries differ depending on the authority in question, but the Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP) definition is widely used, and is followed by the most popular Western Palearctic checklist, that of the Association of European Rarities Committees (AERC). The Western Palearctic realm includes mostly boreal and temperate climate ecoregions.
David William Snow was a celebrated English ornithologist born in Windermere, Westmorland.
The grey-headed kingfisher is a species of kingfisher that has a wide distribution from the Cape Verde Islands off the north-west coast of Africa to Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia, east to Ethiopia, Somalia and southern Arabia and south to South Africa.
Menetries's warbler or Ménétries's warbler is a small passerine bird of Southwest Asia belonging to the genus Curruca. The name of the species commemorates Édouard Ménétries, the French zoologist who described the species in 1832. It is closely related to the Sardinian warbler of the Mediterranean basin and is similar to it in appearance.
The crowned sandgrouse is a species of bird in the sandgrouse family, the Pteroclidae from North Africa and the Middle East.
The pale crag martin is a small passerine bird in the swallow family that is resident in northern Africa and in southwestern Asia east to Pakistan. It breeds mainly in the mountains, but also at lower altitudes, especially in rocky areas and around towns. Unlike most swallows, it is often found far from water. It is 12–13 cm (4.5–5 in) long, with mainly brown plumage, paler-toned on the upper breast and underwing coverts, and with white "windows" on the spread tail in flight. The sexes are similar in appearance, but juveniles have pale fringes to the upperparts and flight feathers. It was formerly considered to be the northern subspecies of the rock martin of southern Africa, although it is smaller, paler, and whiter-throated than that species. The pale crag martin hunts along cliff faces for flying insects using a slow flight with much gliding. Its call is a soft twitter.
The streaked scrub warbler, also known simply as the scrub warbler, is a small passerine bird. It is the only species placed in the genus Scotocerca. It is found in northern Africa and south-western Asia. It is a bird of desert fringes, frequenting scrubby areas, ravines and gorges, and is mainly resident, although local movements can occur outside the breeding season.
The red-tailed wheatear, also known as the rusty-tailed wheatear, Persian wheatear or Afghan wheatear, is a small passerine bird breeding in mountainous areas of south-west and central Asia. It belongs to the wheatear genus Oenanthe which was formerly placed in the thrush family Turdidae but is now in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. The red-tailed wheatear used to be considered a subspecies of the Kurdish wheatear but is now often regarded as a separate species.
The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World is a book by Richard Howard and Alick Moore which presents a list of the bird species of the world. It was the first single-volume world bird list to include subspecies names, and until the publication of the 5th edition of James Clements' Checklist of Birds of the World was the only one to do so.
Stanley Cramp was a British civil servant and ornithologist best known as the first Chief Editor of the encyclopaedic nine-volume handbook The Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP).
David Ian "Dave" Nurney is an English bird artist.