This pocket identification guide tells about 160 most widespread bird species of North European Russia. You don't need a background in biology to use the booklet. The texts are written for a general readership and supplied with special symbols that indicate the size and weight of the bird. To make it easier to recognize birds in the wild, some entries are supplemented with recordings of their voices. The audio recordings can be accessed via QR codes linked to the volume "Voices of Birds of Russia", which was published with the participation of the B.N. Veprintsev Phonotheque of Animal Voices.

– The guide will be of use to anyone interested in birds - adults and children alike. It helps you easily determine who has come to your bird feeder or who you have encountered in the park. The booklet can also be handy for participants of the Karelian bird monitoring project. It is small, lightweight, and the pages are moisture-proof - convenient for trips to fields and forests. Thanks to the wonderful illustrations, with closely related species located next to each other, you can quickly decide which species group to look into and quickly identify the bird you have encountered. For some species, especially those similar in appearance, such as leaf warblers, voices can help with identification. They look alike – you identify the bird as a leaf warbler and then listen to voices of different species from the guide. Leaf warblers' songs are quite distinctive - once you hear them, it will be much easier to identify the bird to species. And you can even try to lure it by playing the species song to take a closer look and take a shot. In spring, for example, it is easy to song-attract the Bluethroat - one of the most beautiful birds of Karelia, which became the "cover face" of our guide, – told Maria Matantseva, Senior Researcher at Zoology Laboratory of the Institute of Biology KarRC RAS.

The guide will be of use not only for the inhabitants and guests of Karelia, but also for bird-watchers all over Northwest Russia.

– Most of the birds are common for us all, and we tried to include in the booklet information about the most widespread and most noticeable birds of our part of the country. As for Karelia, we didn't have a special key to birds of our region before. This gap will now be filled. Besides, in the entries we also tried to indicate where and when a certain bird species is more likely to be encountered. For example, there are birds that are found only in the south of Karelia or, on the contrary, only in the north. There are those that are found in Karelia only in winter or only on passage. Such information can hardly be found in general bird guides, but this is what can help you most in locating the bird you are interested in, – the ornithologist added.


Photo by archives of Maria Matantseva and Sergey Simonov

The booklet is going to be printed next spring using money crowdfunded on planeta.ru platform. “Birds of Karelia” will be the third to be published in the regional bird guide series. The pioneer guide to “Birds of Middle Urals” was printed in two thousand copies in 2019 and then reprinted in 2022.