''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 An ornithological handbook is a book (or series of books) giving summarised information either about the birds of a particular geographical area or a particular taxonomic group of birds. Some handbooks cover many aspects of their subjects' biology ...

covering the birds of the western portion of the Palearctic zoogeographical region.

Antecedents

Earlier books of comparable scope include: * Dresser's nine-volume '' A History of the Birds of Europe, Including all the Species Inhabiting the Western Palearctic Region'' (1871–1896) * Witherby et al.'s five-volume ''

Handbook of British Birds ''The Handbook of British Birds'' was a pioneering bird guide by H.F. Witherby, Rev. F.C.R. Jourdain, Norman F. Ticehurst and Bernard W. Tucker, published in five volumes by H. F. & G. Witherby between 1938–1941. The Handbook ''The Handboo ...

'' (1938–1941)

Book

''The Birds of the Western Palearctic'' is a comprehensive regional avifauna for the

Western Palearctic 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 ...

. 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. Cramp died in 1987 and the subsequent volumes were edited by Duncan Brooks and Christopher Perrins. ''BWPs format and breadth influenced the development of regional avifaunas for other parts of the world, notably ''

The Birds of Africa :"The Birds of Africa" ''is also a five-volume handbook by George Ernest Shelley, published 1896-1912.'' ''The Birds of Africa'' is an eight-volume ornithological handbook. Its authors/editors are C. Hilary Fry, Stuart Keith and Emil Urban, a ...

''. The titles of the nine volumes were: *Volume I: Ostrich to Ducks *Volume II: Hawks to Bustards *Volume III: Waders to Gulls *Volume IV: Terns to Woodpeckers *Volume V: Tyrant Flycatchers to Thrushes *Volume VI: Warblers *Volume VII: Flycatchers to Shrikes *Volume VIII: Crows to Finches *Volume IX: Buntings and New World Warblers A two-volume ''Concise Edition'' was produced in 1998. Both the full and concise editions were published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

(OUP). The boundary used for the region included

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, but not

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

; all of

Macaronesia Macaronesia (Portuguese: ''Macaronésia,'' Spanish: ''Macaronesia'') is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the North Atlantic, off the coasts of Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of List of islands in the At ...

(islands off Portugal and North Africa); North Africa; the northern parts of the

Arabian peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...

;

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

, but not

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

; and Russia west of the

Ural Ural may refer to: *Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan * Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India *Ural Federal District, in Russia *Ural econ ...

s. A number of subsequent papers have questioned the appropriateness of this boundary, particularly its southern and southeastern delimitations, among them Martins & Hirschfeld (1994). Martins and Hirschfeld published a more detailed paper in 1998, discussing the boundary in

and the

. 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. Ullman (2000) disagreed with their conclusions regarding the Arabian enclaves, however, arguing that their

depauperate A depauperate ecosystem is an ecosystem which is lacking in numbers or variety of species, often because it lacks enough stored chemical elements and resources required for life. Thus, depauperate ecosystems often cannot support rapid growth of f ...

avifauna, when compared to species-rich areas in northeast Africa, justified inclusion of the whole of Arabia in the Western Palearctic. Roselaar (2006), analysing the breeding distributions of 1037

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird species in the

Palearctic 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 realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

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. 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. The second, known as "BWP''i''", was produced by

BirdGuides Ltd. ''Birdwatch'' (ISSN 0967-1870) is a British monthly magazine for birdwatchers, established in 1992 by Solo Publishing. Distributed by subscription and also through newsagents, it has a cover price of £4.10. Each edition is also available on ...

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. The third version was released as an

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

app by NatureGuides in 2020 with an integrated video library and updated taxonomy, though distribution and population data were not updated.

Publication data

''BWP''

* Volume 1 (1977): , 722 pages * Volume 2 (1980): , 696 pages * Volume 3 (1983): , 913 pages * Volume 4 (1985): , 960 pages * Volume 5 (1988): , 1136 pages * Volume 6 (1992): , 760 pages * Volume 7 (1993): , 610 pages * Volume 8 (1994): , 956 pages * Volume 9 (1994): , 522 pages

''BWP Concise''

* Snow, D. W. & Perrins, C. M. (1998). ''The Birds of the Western Palearctic'' Concise Edition. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birds of the Western Palearctic, the 1977 non-fiction books Ornithological handbooks