Birds of the UK Overseas Territories has just been published! The book explores the birds and other wildlife of each of the 14 UKOTs with a particular focus on environmental threats and conservation issues. Six Overseas Territories are within our region: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos. Many BirdsCaribbean members have helped produce the detailed accounts.

The recently (July 2020) published Birds of the UK Overseas Territories includes detailed accounts of the biodiversity of 14 of the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) with an emphasis on their avifauna. Although the UKOTs are spread around the globe, of great interest to BirdsCaribbean members will be the chapters on Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

In terms of global biodiversity, these territories are remarkably significant. Among landscapes that range from coral atolls, through mangroves and dry forests to the ice sheets of Antarctica, the UKOTs support no fewer than 45 species of birds currently considered to be globally threatened. They are also home to a third of all the world’s breeding albatrosses, and nine of the world’s 17 species of penguin.

In a rapidly changing world, the UKOTs symbolise global crises in climate and biodiversity. Threats faced by their wildlife range from mortality of seabirds at sea through industrial fisheries, and on land as a result of introduced ground predators to the utter devastation of hurricanes in the Caribbean—which provide a stark reminder of our changing climate. The human impact on the wildlife of our planet has been increasing for centuries, but the next few decades promise to be critical.

This book explores the birds and other wildlife of each of the 14 UKOTs, with a particular focus on environmental threats and conservation priorities. Written by authors with a deep connection to the sites, this book represents an important stocktake of the biological richness of these special places in the early 21st century.

Lavishly illustrated with photos and maps it is well worth purchasing especially as all profits go to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ (RSPB) conservation work throughout the UKOTs.

 

Birds of the UK Overseas Territories – edited by Roger Riddington.

Published by T & AD Poyser

ISBN: 9781472977267 (Paperback)

ISBN: 9781472977250 (Hardback)

 

For purchase from the following vendors:

Amazon Smile: Remember to use smile.amazon.com and designate BirdsCaribbean as your charity to support when making purchases from Amazon (a portion of your purchases comes to us – every little bit helps!).

Barnes & Noble: Available here in Paperback and Nook

NHBS (Natural History Book Service): If you’re in the UK or Europe, shop here.

 

Authors of Caribbean UKOT chapters – you may recognize some familiar names. Congrats to our colleagues on this great achievement!

Anguilla – Steve Holliday, Karim Hodge, Farah Mukhida, Clarissa Lloyd, James Millett, Louise Soanes

Bermuda – Andrew Dobson, Jeremy Madeiros

British Virgin Islands – Clive Petrovic, Louise Soanes, Nancy Woodfield Pascoe, Susan Zaluski

Cayman Islands – Patricia Bradley

Montserrat – Steffan Oppel, Gerard Gray, James Daly, Stephen Mendes, Calvin Fenton, Gemma Galbraith, Shawn Daniel, James Millett.

Turks and Caicos islands – Kathleen Wood