Collins Bird Guide
Lars Svensson et al: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• Described by some as the best field guide in the world, and 15 years in the making. Has it been Worth the Wait?...Yes definately! If you buy just 1 book a year then make sure that its this one. Stunning drawings by the worlds finest bird illustrators..and it shows..check out the plates on tern, Skuas, and the Ducks...not forgetting the Finches and Crossbills.
  
  
  

Flight Identification of European Seabirds
Anders Blomdahl, Bertil Breife & Niklas Holström: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• This book is set to become the dedicated sea-watchers bible. Flight photography is very difficult, especially for seabirds and yet this volume contains over 650 generally superb shots, each carefully annotated to pick out the key identification features. Just about every seabird that has ever occurred in European waters has been included. (making this book equally valuable to birders on the East coast of America.) The authors are experts in their field and they have included a wealth of new information.

The Sibley Guide to Birds (Audubon Society Nature Guides Ser.)
David Allen Sibley: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• David Sibley's new field guide to the birds of North America renders all the existing guides obsolete at one stroke. The book itself is beautifully produced and crafted - the sort of book that gives pleasure just in the handling of it.