Kit Reviews
We're not experts, just users. We have compared various different brands and types to see what suits our needs the most, as wildlife watchers.
Different situations require different solutions. If you are walking through the Himalayas, weight and size (or lack thereof) is very important; however if you are driving round the Kruger National Park in a large car, the larger the binoculars and lens the better. Children may not be so interested in latin names, and someone who occasionally looks out at their bird-table doesn't need a scientific guide to the birds of Europe.
Click here for a review of A complete guide to Antarctic Wildife.
AA/BTO Birds of Britain and Europe
Covering more than 500 species, and using a mix of photos and illustrations, there is plenty here for all bird enthusiasts.Read full review »
Collins Bird Guide - 2nd edition
The long awaited second edition of Collins Bird Guide is now here. Covering Britain and Europe, the second edition has been update and revamped. Distribution maps have been updated allowing for recent bird movements; the text has been expanded and new illustrations have been included - There are now 3500 illustrations!Read full review »
Bats – Of Britain, Europe and North Africa
More than 400 colour photographs is an achievement in itself, considering the subjectRead full review »
Planet Ape
This is one of the best books we have seen this year, a step up from the usual "Wildlife is lovely, we must be nicer to it" sort of book.Read full review »
Why the Cheetah Cheats - And other mysteries of the animal world. By Lewis Smith
Strange and quirky facts, new discoveries and unusual facts about the animal world.Read full review »
Life in the Wild
This book has no pretensions. It is a celebration of wildlife photographs, and I say photographs rather than photography. The book contains some 200 stunning wildlife images and virtually nothing else.Read full review »
Wildlife Garden - By Martyn Cox in conjunction with the Royal Horticultural Society.
This is a top book for youngsters with any sort of interest in wildlife & conservation.Read full review »
Pettersson D 240x Bat Detector
The automatic playback of the Time Expansion gave us a real thrill; listening to the previously silent Pipistrelles as they flitted around our heads.Read full review »
Stars of Big Cat Diary
Nowadays it regularly pulls in some 7 million viewers, and has launched a series of ‘diaries' and copy cat (excuse me) programmes across the airwaves (bears, elephants, meerkats.), but Big Cat was the original and is still the best.Read full review »
Wildlife and conservation Volunteering
But how do you chose which project to go for? Or, even more importantly, how do you know that the 'elephant faeces sampling' in Sri Lanka or the 'snake weighing project' in Guyana are bona fide, well run, worthwhile and safe pastimes for young Johnty & Jemima to undertake?Read full review »
Sparrow nest box
According to the BTO, House Sparrows are social birds, they, roost and breed colonially and need space to live together.Read full review »
Olympus SP-590UZ teleconverter and adapter
We think that the Olympus SP-590UZ is the best camera in its class, with a very good 26X built-in zoom (click Olympus SP-590UZ to read the full review). However, if that isn't enough, Olympus also make a 1.7 Tele Conversion Lens.Read full review »
Access Africa – A guide to safaris for people with limited mobility
Gordon Rattray is a quadriplegic who had visited 300 hotels, lodges and safari camps across East and Southern Africa. Before his diving accident, he drove overland trucks across Africa, so few will know the continents whims better.Read full review »
Wild Kew
The birdlife is the most visible of the wildlife, but Angel has captured the squirrels, foxes, and even the rats amongst the mammals. More dramatically, the insects, especially the butterflies, wasps, dragonflies and beetles are all resplendent.Read full review »
Quill garden bird drinker and feeder
It has been very popular in the Wildife Extra garden. It did take the birds a few weeks to work out where to find the water (There has been plenty lying about in puddles for them recently) and they aren't particularly concerned that it isn't a great masterpiece of sculpture.Read full review »
Orchids of Britain & Ireland – A field and site guide
Personally, I am not really into orchids, or flowers of any kind. But if I had any interest in orchids, this book would be the first in the bookcase.Read full review »
Britain's reptiles and amphibians
There are several ways provided of identifying the various species, from quick ID charts that will help you discern those similar species from each other (I still struggle with smooth and palmate newts). Additionally each species is described in great details, with illustrations to match that show male and females, immature, larvae (tadpoles) and even eggs & frogspawn.Read full review »
Kingfisher - Tales from the Halcyon River
This book raises the bar with some extraordinary photographs.Read full review »
Paramo Pájaro Jacket
I don't know if this is the first jacket specifically designed for wildlife watching, but it is definitely the best.Read full review »
Nature's Great Events - BBC
Nature's Great Events was the BBC's latest wildlife spectacular, following the great wildlife spectacles driven by nature.Read full review »
Snow Monkeys
This book covers all aspects of the Japanese macaque's lives, but concentrates heavily on the snow monkeys. They are very photogenic, with bright pink faces and backsides - especially when set against the snow. And images of them chilling out in the thermal pools surrounded by snow, even with snow on their heads while immersed in the hot water, have become amongst the most iconic in the world.Read full review »
New Zealand Wildlife
Wildlife Extra has just launched a guide to where to see wildlife in New Zealand, and this book provides the perfect companion with detailed descriptions of all the wildlife and birds that you are likely to see, including birds, whales, dolphins, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, trees and shrubs, and even some fish.
Click here to see the full review
Read full review »
Flight of the Wild Geese
I picked it up expecting a reasonably dull monologue on how clever geese are to fly from Svarlbard to Scotland and back, but the book surprised me.Read full review »
Sunagor, the World's most powerful binoculars
Sunagor Reader Offer Sunagor are offering readers and subscribers of www.wildlifeextra.com their fantastic 25 - 150 X 70 MEGA ZOOM binoculars for just Ł199.99 (Inc P & P) , RRP Ł399.99. To buy a pair of the world's most powerful binoculars at this special price, call Sunagor on 020 7722 1476 or email info@sunagor.com and quote WE1. Sunagor claim that their 25 - 150 X 70 MEGA ZOOM binoculars are the world's most powerful, and they are certainly the most powerful that we have ever comeRead full review »
Rare Birds Yearbook 2009
Rare Birds Yearbook 2009 updates the status of the 190 rarest birds in the world. For anyone with an interest in the conservation of the world's rarest birds, this book is a must. The book also helps the conservation of the species as £4 from each sale is donated towards saving the birds included.Read full review »
Bird Ringing
The BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) started bird ringing 100 years ago, in 1909. To date some 36 million birds have been ringed.Read full review »
Sunagor all weather binoculars
The first question I asked myself was "Why would I want binoculars designed to work in the rain?" Just stay indoors. Then I thought about it.Read full review »
The Encyclopaedia of Sharks
There are some weird and wonderful shapes and sizes. The Hammerhead we all know, but the extraordinary Goblin shark, with its hugely elongated nose (and even more unusually, with a liver that accounts for 25% of its bodyweight.), the prehistoric looking Frilled shark with trident teeth, to the tiny pygmy shark, which checks in at less than a foot long.Read full review »
A Life of Ospreys
Written by Roy Dennis. What Diane Fossey is to gorillas and David Shepherd is to Elephants, Roy Dennis is to ospreys.Read full review »
The Atlas of Endangered Species
120 pages of information about the who, what, where, how long and why of the worlds endangered species.Read full review »
Fruit - Edible, Inedible, Incredible
Available to readers of Wildlife Extra at £30 post-free (RRP £35). To order, telephone 01635 248833 or email info@papadakis.net and quote 'Wildlife Extra'.
This book is truly gobsmacking. The photography is truly spectacular, mostly very close up and set against black backgrounds which brings out the colours wonderfully.
Read full review »
Wild Amazon - Nick Gordon
This is an important book. One of its kind, and although it is always easy to be pessimistic about this rainforest - his sentence about the Brazilian government's claim about timber production is truly frightening - Gordon eschews this doom mongering and remains upbeat.Read full review »
Daring to Fly - The wildlife paintings of Colin Woolf
Colin Woolf is one of Britain's best know wildlife artists, and the new book, written by his wife Jo, is a showcase of his work.Read full review »
Bob Books - Your wildlife in a Bob Books photobook
The rapidly increasing use of digital cameras has meant that the age-old delights of family photo albums is declining. Our photographs are now stored on computers, yet the desire for the emotive, tactile experience of photographs remains.Read full review »
Creatures Of The Deep Blue
Jonathan Bird is a professional underwater photographer who specialises in large marine mammals, Creatures of the Deep Blue is an underwater safari with Jonathan.
Read full review »
The definitive field guide to the world's marine mammals.
10% off 'Whales, Dolphins and Seals', now £11.69.
Photos, illustrations, maps, hotspots and plenty of information, the best book in its field. Includes whales, dolphins, seals, sea-lions, Polar bears, sea otters, dugong and manatees.
Click here to buy this book.
Photos, illustrations, maps, hotspots and plenty of information, the best book in its field. Includes whales, dolphins, seals, sea-lions, Polar bears, sea otters, dugong and manatees.
Click here to buy this book.
Read full review »
Mobile mapping and GPS review
In our guide to UK nature reserves, we provide the grid location for all the reserves we list. However knowing that you need to get to TQ226768 isn't that straightforward for everyone, and especially with those reserves (most of them it seems) that are ½ mile off the road or in the back of beyond.Read full review »
Rare Birds Year Book 2008
If this book weren't so depressing, it would be one of the best books of the year.Read full review »
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Mammals of Madagascar, by Nick Garbutt
Madagascar is unique in many ways, but none more so than the mammals that are found there. Of the 123 species, at least 103 are found nowhere else.
This book is the most comprehensive guide that you need if visiting Madagascar.
10% off the RRP.Click here to buy this book.
This book is the most comprehensive guide that you need if visiting Madagascar.
10% off the RRP.Click here to buy this book.
Read full review »
Safari in wildest Africa - Michael and Christine Denis-Huot
Michel and Christine Denis Huot spend at least six months a year in East Africa. They have produced several books in the past, and the latest, Safari in Wildest Africa , is a fantastic photographic record of the big game of East Africa.Read full review »
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Insects of Britain and Western Europe
Now you can tell the difference between a bed bug and a pine cone bug. Over 2300 illustrations and an instant guide as to whether you might see them in the UK or not.Read full review »
Raptors - Second edition
Covering all birds of prey which occur regularly in Britain & Ireland, this is a very specialist book (and CD covering all the various raptor calls).Read full review »
Mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East
There is a wider range of mammals alive an well in Europe than you might imagine, with some 400 species listed.Read full review »
Canals of Britain- A comprehensive guide
Dragonflies, bats, water birds, water voles, fish and many others have all benefitted from the canal age, and possibly even more so from the railways superseding the canals, leaving miles and miles of ideal habitat unused, with just a few shopping trolleys to contend with.Read full review »
Living Dinosaurs
There are considered to be 4 living groups of reptiles that have been around since the times of the dinosaurs, crocodilians; Turtles and tortoises,; Snakes, lizards and worm lizards; and tuatara.Read full review »
Bat detectors Magenta 4 & Magenta 5
I have never had a bat detector before but I was excited to have a go with one for the first time. I was hoping that it would be as simple turn the machine on, wave it around a little and be given a short print out as to how many of what sort of bats are flying around my head. That's not quite how it works though.Read full review »
Puffins - By Heather Angel
Puffins, along with guillemots, auklets and razorbills, make up the auk family of seabirds; and there are four species of puffins, Atlantic, Tufted and Horned, as well as the Rhinoceros auklet.Read full review »
Steiner vs Swarovski binoculars
We tried two pairs of Steiner binoculars, and used our own Swarovski bins at the same time for comparison purposes.Read full review »
Gorillas – The gentle giants
The book starts with a little history about the discovery of the gorilla; probably by a Carthaginian called Hanno the Navigator in the 5th Century BC. No further news came out of Africa for 2000 years until the 16th centuryRead full review »
Where To Go Wild In Britain
Jointly produced by the RSPB and Dorling Kindersley, Where To Go Wild In Britain provides a month by month guide to the UK's best wildlife experiences.Read full review »
Hugo Van Lawick. "Addo - The African King" & "Playing in savage paradise"
These films, shot in 2002, are good honest wildlife films. None of the new tricks of cameras disguises as ants, or rather sanctimonious footage of water flowing over grains of sand, and 10 minutes on how they managed to shoot such an interesting subject.Read full review »
Vanishing Animals
This coffee table book is a pictorial journey through the world's most spectacular endangered animals.Read full review »
Birds of Gambia
Gambia is one of the smallest countries in the world, at just 11,000 KMS2, yet some 550 species of bird have been recorded there, with another 120 or so in neighbouring Senegal.Read full review »
British Moths and Butterflies - A photographic guide
The book covers 1420 species of moth, 850 macros and 500 micros, as well as 314 caterpillars, pupae and eggs and 74 butterflies.Read full review »
Wildlife of the Jurassic Coast
If you are visiting the southern coast of England, anywhere between Exmouth and Swanage, and you are vaguely interested in wildlife, you should get your hands on this book.Read full review »
Albatross - Their world, their ways.
The albatross has to be the world's most photogenic bird species. Theri size, their plumage, their eyes and the locations that they are found in make them wonderful subjects, and yet some of the hardest and most inaccessible birds to capture on camera.Read full review »
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Birds of Trinidad & Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago provides some of the richest bird watching anywhere in the world. Despite having a combined area of just 4500 Kms, 470 bird species are found on the islands. A wide variety of habitats provides a very diverse setting for the spectalar birdlife.Read full review »
Woodland Trust 'Exploring Woodland' guides
Woodland Trust 'Exploring Woodland' guides
All of the following books can be bought online at the Woodlands Trust online shop.
Read full review »
A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Japan and North East Asia
Quite unusual amongst bird guides in that it relies on photos, not illustrations, for all the birds. In fact most species merit 3 photos, and there are small distribution maps as well as brief notes giving a description, range, status in Japan, voice and similar species.Read full review »