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Coming as it does from the British Trust for Ornithology stable, it is hard to imagine a more authoritative source for a book on British bird migrationit is hard to imagine a more authoritative source for a book on British bird migration. The book is a distillation of the information contained in The Migration Atlas: movements of birds in Britain and Ireland which is a larger and more academic book. Time to Fly presents the fascinating story of bird migration in an accessible style and will, no doubt, succeed in putting it before a much wider audience than could be reached by The Migration Atlas alone.

The book starts with several chapters looking at the ecology of migration: what it is; what the risks are to the birds and how we study it. The next seven chapters look at migration from the point of view of the characteristic birds of various habitats. One chapter deals with the typical birds of towns and gardensOne chapter deals with the typical birds of towns and gardens: a chapter of particular interest to the wildlife gardener. The book ends with a look at the rarer migrants which turn up in Britain and an examination of what we know and what is hypothesized about how birds migrate.

Anyone with an interest in natural history in general, or birds in particular, will enjoy this book. By understanding something of the extraordinary global migrations of some of the birds which we see around the places we live, we can come to a greater understanding of the place our gardens and open spaces occupy in their extraordinary lives.