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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Your most anticipated futures books (1 Viewer)

........... The new 'Birds of Australia' has a similarly useless index listing birds by their first name rather than by group. I do hope its not part of an international trend!

I suspect it's the easiest way to compile an index. No manpower needed, just a small program. And many of those who do the printer's job are no birders anyway. Nevertheless, there are obviously birders at the beginning of such a book. They definitely need to follow through till the end, or else the blame will rest on them.
 
I suspect it's the easiest way to compile an index. No manpower needed, just a small program. And many of those who do the printer's job are no birders anyway. Nevertheless, there are obviously birders at the beginning of such a book. They definitely need to follow through till the end, or else the blame will rest on them.

I fear you're right & the trend is to cut costs by not using a professional indexer but a poor, albeit very cheap, program. However, you'd have thought that Lynx would have staff with a background in such things to know by now (they must have seen the complaints!) that the computer model being used was useless for field guides. Besides, I'm sure they could have bunged someone a few hundred quid to take the computer generated index into something more practical.
 
I fear you're right & the trend is to cut costs by not using a professional indexer but a poor, albeit very cheap, program. However, you'd have thought that Lynx would have staff with a background in such things to know by now (they must have seen the complaints!) that the computer model being used was useless for field guides. Besides, I'm sure they could have bunged someone a few hundred quid to take the computer generated index into something more practical.

I think I have read somewhere that the New Guinea book will have a better index. Hope it's not just wishful thinking or a dream on my part.

EDIT: OK, here it is, from the Lynx site after my complaint and expressed fears:We are aware of the issue concerning the index of “Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas & Wallacea”, and it will be rectified in the second edition. The common names may be found in the index to “Birds of New Guinea. Including Bismarck Archipelago and Bougainville”. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
 
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I think I have read somewhere that the New Guinea book will have a better index. Hope it's not just wishful thinking or a dream on my part.

EDIT: OK, here it is, from the Lynx site after my complaint and expressed fears:We are aware of the issue concerning the index of “Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas & Wallacea”, and it will be rectified in the second edition. The common names may be found in the index to “Birds of New Guinea. Including Bismarck Archipelago and Bougainville”. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Let's hope so although I'm not entirely sure that the author is 100% confident!
 
Phil Gregory's "Birds of New Guinea" has just been delivered and I can say, without hesitation, that it is the finest bird guide on the market. This is not because the text is so well done (although it is) nor because the illustrations are excellent (although they are) but because I find myself flatteringly sharing the dedication with Phil's family and generously thanked in the first lines of the acknowledgements. It really was great fun to act as Phil's 'useful idiot' and a terrific learning process too, all I've got to do now is visit the damn place!
 
Phil Gregory's "Birds of New Guinea" has just been delivered and I can say, without hesitation, that it is the finest bird guide on the market. This is not because the text is so well done (although it is) nor because the illustrations are excellent (although they are) but because I find myself flatteringly sharing the dedication with Phil's family and generously thanked in the first lines of the acknowledgements. It really was great fun to act as Phil's 'useful idiot' and a terrific learning process too, all I've got to do now is visit the damn place!

Good on you, John. You deserve it!:t:
MJB
 
Alice Cibois and Jean-Claude Thibault will publish a book on the birds of Eastern Polynesia this summer. Including extinct species.

Birds of Eastern Polynesia

http://www.lynxeds.com/product/birds-eastern-polynesia

Pre-order email just arrived to my inbox on this one...cheap too...

If I were a certain gentleman writing a guide to Argentina I'd be getting a move on I reckon...the Lynx machine is beginning to crank out these "gap-fillers" at quite the rate...

One assumes Philippines (surely authored by Hutchinson et al??) should be in progress along with China (I'd like to see a Sibley approach here and have regional guides not a full China guide)

cheers, McM
 
Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds (Shirihai and Svensson) will be published (in two volumes) on 26th July 2018.

Cheers, Jim
 
Does that mean that the title will now be changed to "Birds New to Science: 51 Years of Avian Discoveries"? ;)

I think the period will run from 1960 to 2009. And as you can read in the NHBS link they have also the chapters

- Future new species
- Invalid species
- Future discoveries
 
Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds (Shirihai and Svensson) will be published (in two volumes) on 26th July 2018.

Cheers, Jim

I am slightly disappointed by Mr. Shirihai and his publishing company. I've never seen an author who has more announcements and postponements than him. Three books (FG Seabirds of the World and the two volumes of Birds of the World) by Shirihai have been announced for August 2017. But neither the publishing company Bloomsbury (A&C Black) has confirmed the release date (allegedly August 10, 2017) nor there is an alternate release date for these books.
 
I am slightly disappointed by Mr. Shirihai and his publishing company. I've never seen an author who has more announcements and postponements than him. Three books (FG Seabirds of the World and the two volumes of Birds of the World) by Shirihai have been announced for August 2017. But neither the publishing company Bloomsbury (A&C Black) has confirmed the release date (allegedly August 10, 2017) nor there is an alternate release date for these books.


they will be outdated by the time they come out.....
 
The most interesting point is that many photos from Shirihai's upcoming books have been already published, either in the internet or e.g. in the book The World's Rarest Birds by Erik Hirschfeld. Most notable is his Tubenoses Project. So if his new books consists mostly of photos I don't know what it taking so long to publish these books.
 
Today I've got my copy of Birds of Eastern Polynesia by Alice Cibois and Jean-Claude Thibault. I am very satisfied. The accounts are very comprehensive and it is an up to date addition to Steadman's "Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds" (2006). In contrast to Hume & Walters (2012) and Collar et al. (2016) they don't have transferred the Mysterious Bird of Ulieta to the genus Aplonis but they considered it still as incertae sedis. Another change is in Acrocephalus astrolabii. Though Collar et al (HBW & BirdLife Illustrated Checklist, 2016) considered Micronesia (Yap) as provenance, Cibois and Thibault are almost sure that this bird must have came from Gambier, Mangareva. So they have changed the vernacular name to Gambier Reed Warbler.
 

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