The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia [Paperback]

There are quite a number of Australian Bird field guides these days. they all have merit. This one is right up there with the best and is an indispensible, easy to use essential. The Family summaries and short summary of classifications are succinct and informative - they certainly whet the appetite to learn more if the user is so inclined.

I have used Pizzey extensively ever since the first edition in 1981 (illustrations were then done by Roy Doyle). I actually preferred that first edition but it is now long out of print and this seventh edition is a worthy successor. The illustrations are sound and do help identification. The book is too large to fit in a pocket for a field trip but is certainly packable and although I do not use it in the field, it seems robust enough in construction to handle that if the user wished it.

As with any bird watcher, I have all the field guides to the birds of Australia. There are many and they are all good. However, my favourite (for the last few years...it does change with different editions, etc), is this, the "Pizzey and Knight". As a biology and wildlife based guide and educator in Australia, I travel all over the continent with school groups, tours and for my own recreation, so I 'road test" a lot of different field guides. I have found the illustrations in this book to consistently be the best, especially with the waders and shorebirds where it is most important. It also covers the family groups very well at the end of the book, which is important to gain a wider perspective on our bird fauna.
Damon Ramsey
Author, "Ecosystem Guides Rainforest of tropical Australia"
www.educational-tours.com.au

Basics: 2003, 7th edition, softcover, 576 pages, 2,500 color illustrations of 783 species, range maps

This 7th edition is dramatically improved over its first edition created more than two decades earlier. This field guide for all Australian birds is definitely in the top three books available for the country. It is also the thickest of the three books, which is a trade-off for creating plates with larger illustrations and a more organized appearance.

The plates are of very good quality, color, and detail. Compared to the other two field guides, these plates are cleaner and less congested since fewer birds have been crammed into the plates. The plates contain 2-5 species each with anywhere from 5-20 different illustrations. Most of the plates contain only 5-10 illustrations, which makes them less busy than the other books. The various plumages of the genders, ages, races, and subspecies are illustrated very well. My only tiny critique is the birds sometimes look just a little too dark, but nothing that is too distracting or misleading for their identification.

The text, which is adjacent to the plate, consists of a long paragraph containing information on description, voice, habitat, breeding, nests and eggs, and range and status. There is less information in the description or identification sections than I would like to see. I would gladly trade space to remove the nest/egg information to expand the identification material to help compare similar species. Although still good, I think the identification text in the book is not as strong as the material found in the two other similar books (see below).

The range maps use a single color to outline the bird's distribution in the country. For a few of the birds that have irruptive patterns, lighter shading is used to define the potential boundary of their dispersal.

This is a great book for use anywhere in Australia. Its quality is on par with two other books by Simpson/Day and by Morcombe. Any of these books will work just as well. My personal leaning is towards the other two books.

I've listed several related books below...
1) Birds of Australia, 7th ed. by Simpson/Day
2) Field Guide to Australian Birds by Morcombe
3) Photographic Field Guide: Birds of Australia by Flegg
4) Australian Birds: A Concise Photographic Field Guide by Trounson
5) The Atlas of Australian Birds by Blakers
6) Birds in the Australian High Country by Frith
7) Complete Book of Australian Birds by Reader's Digest
8) A Photographic Guide to Birds of Australia by Rowland
9) The Birds of Prey of Australia by Debus
10) A Field Guide to Nests & Eggs of Australian Birds by Beruldsen
11) Where to Find Birds in Australia by Bransbury
(written by Soleglad at Avian Review or Avian Books, October 2008)

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