Best Dragonfly Guide

[harasseddad]

If we're restrict ourselves to UK guides, there's really two leaders: wildguides, and Brookes and Lewington,

My personal preference in the field is for the B & L, purely because I don't like the wildguide being a hardback - I reckon it would fall apart under any real usage - but I use it for reference at home quite often.

Two other guides are Dan Powells
and watching. I don't have watching, so I can't comment on that one. Powell's is beautiful, and full of really useful tips on jizz and flight id - but it suffers from not having all the new uk species that have arrived recently courtesy of global warming. (That's a criticism you can also level at the field study guide - not having small red-eye is a problem.

If you travel to europe often then Dijkstra is the one to go for - much better than Askew as a field guide (But Askew has better information for serious study - it's just not good as a field guide.) But don't get it as a first book for use in the UK - the inclusion of species you won't see just makes it hard to sort out what you're looking at.

Note that Miller is not really a field guide - it's a very good book for information on odenates, but it won't tell you what you're looking at.

[Leicaman]

I use Brooks and Lewington a lot. It has superb artwork and plenty of useful information about the insects and potentially good sites round the UK.

[pdwinter]

Agree with you all the way, harasseddad. My Smallshire and Swash has come apart at the seams so that stays at home but I'm looking forward to the revised softback version (due spring 2009!). When in Spain I carry Dijkstra in my shorts pocket but in Britain Brookes and Lewington is the one. I have Steve Dudley's book - it contains a large sites section which might prove useful for someone who travels around a little more than me.