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Helm Identification Guides

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The Helm Identification Guides are a series of books that identify groups of birds. The series include two types of guides, those that are:

  • Taxonomic, dealing with a particular family of birds on a worldwide scale—most early Helm Guides were this type, as well as many more-recent ones, although some later books deal with identification of such groups on a regional scale only (e.g., The Gulls Guide, which covers only species in Europe, Asia, and North America)
  • Geographic, including all bird species in an area (e.g., The Birds of the West Indies)

Early volumes were sometimes published under the Croom Helm or Christopher Helm imprints. In addition, a parallel set of guides, very similar in design, was published by Pica Press in the 1990s (marked Pica in the list below); Pica was later absorbed into A & C Black (now part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc), and these guides are now marketed as a single series. A completely revised version of the initial Seabirds has been published by Lynx Edicions.

Several of the books have won the British Birds Bird Book of the Year award. A list of titles in the series, in chronological order of publication, is as follows:

Works with a taxonomic scope

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Note: 'nW' indicates those that do not have worldwide coverage.

1980s

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  • Seabirds - an identification guide by Peter Harrison (1983) ISBN 0-7470-1410-8 'obs.'
  • Shorebirds - an identification guide to the waders of the world by John Marchant, A. J. Prater and Peter Hayman (1986) ISBN 0-7470-1403-5
  • The Tanagers : Natural History, Distribution, and Identification by Morton L. Isler and Phyllis R. Isler (1987) ISBN 978-0-87474-552-8 'Smithsonian'
  • Wildfowl - an identification guide to the ducks, geese and swans of the world by Steve Madge and Hilary Burn (1988) ISBN 0-7470-2201-1
  • A Handbook to the Swallows and Martins of the World by Angela Turner, illustrated by Chris Rose (1989) ISBN 0-7136-4206-8

1990–1994

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1995–1999

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2000–2009

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2010–2019

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2020–current

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