Thanks for your critical additions, John. It often takes a view from the outside to get past the local pride, I guess.
I should add that Australia has had some very fine FGs before this new one has now been added.
Last edited:
-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Australian field guides - a bit of a review. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter colonelboris
- Start date
Thanks for your critical additions, John. It often takes a view from the outside to get past the local pride, I guess.
I should add that Australia has had some very fine FGs before this new one has now been added.
I got my copy yesterday and have had a bit of a look through. It's obviously very good and a noticeable improvement on all of the existing Australian guides. I've always been puzzled by people who claimed that there was no big need for an improved Australian field guide. The existing ones all had their strengths but all had significant flaws, certainly in comparison to the Collins guide. This book definitely provides something that's comparable to the Collins and Sibley guides.
On first impressions I'd agree that it's maybe not quite as good as the Collins. The illustrations, while very good, don't always seem quite as believable as most of the Collins ones. They sometimes seem a bit too clean and static looking - very slightly like they're pictures of stuffed birds rather than living ones (particularly the raptors). A few (particularly those by Jeff Davies) look a little bit anaemic, although the ones by Peter Marsack (most of the passerines) seem more saturated. The text seems good but I'd agree that it's not quite as efficient and to the ID point as the Collins. Sometimes they seem to get a bit carried away with the space they have and mention things that aren't that relevant e.g. the breeding habitat of vagrant North American waders. In the few cases I've compared against the Collins, it's not as comparative in the ID descriptions i.e. it doesn't say as much about how to distinguish species x from similar species y. It does do this, but could perhaps do it more in some cases.
There are some very good things though. An obvious thing is that they really seem to illustrate a lot of plumages and variations. For example, there are 14 illustrations for Long-tailed Skua, across a very wide range of plumages. There's also fairly liberal use of more impressionistic, 'jizzy', in-habitat illustrations of how birds might look in real life - something I like to see and that the Collins pioneered. These aren't as frequent as in the Collins but they're much more regularly used than in the Sibley.
It's also worth pointing out that this book isn't just useful for those birding in Australia. The treatment of Asiatic shorebirds might be the best in any current guide. If you're into seabirds you should also get this book. By my reckoning there 86 species of tubenose described and illustrated over 45 pages, in most cases with 5-10 illustrations per species. They also cover a few 'emerging' species in this group (e.g. 'New Caledonian Storm-Petrel'), which is nice to see.
Anyway, it's really good. Well done to all the people involved.
On first impressions I'd agree that it's maybe not quite as good as the Collins. The illustrations, while very good, don't always seem quite as believable as most of the Collins ones. They sometimes seem a bit too clean and static looking - very slightly like they're pictures of stuffed birds rather than living ones (particularly the raptors). A few (particularly those by Jeff Davies) look a little bit anaemic, although the ones by Peter Marsack (most of the passerines) seem more saturated. The text seems good but I'd agree that it's not quite as efficient and to the ID point as the Collins. Sometimes they seem to get a bit carried away with the space they have and mention things that aren't that relevant e.g. the breeding habitat of vagrant North American waders. In the few cases I've compared against the Collins, it's not as comparative in the ID descriptions i.e. it doesn't say as much about how to distinguish species x from similar species y. It does do this, but could perhaps do it more in some cases.
There are some very good things though. An obvious thing is that they really seem to illustrate a lot of plumages and variations. For example, there are 14 illustrations for Long-tailed Skua, across a very wide range of plumages. There's also fairly liberal use of more impressionistic, 'jizzy', in-habitat illustrations of how birds might look in real life - something I like to see and that the Collins pioneered. These aren't as frequent as in the Collins but they're much more regularly used than in the Sibley.
It's also worth pointing out that this book isn't just useful for those birding in Australia. The treatment of Asiatic shorebirds might be the best in any current guide. If you're into seabirds you should also get this book. By my reckoning there 86 species of tubenose described and illustrated over 45 pages, in most cases with 5-10 illustrations per species. They also cover a few 'emerging' species in this group (e.g. 'New Caledonian Storm-Petrel'), which is nice to see.
Anyway, it's really good. Well done to all the people involved.
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
I certainly asked the question 'is there the market for another Australian guide', I personally never said anything about the need or otherwise for an 'improved' one and I can't recall that anyone else did? The fact that it's not so long since the last one was published (2012), made me wonder how much better it could reasonably be.
I had no intention of buying another Aussie field guide but the glowing reviews convinced me and I have to say that I am more than happy that I bought it.
A
Last edited:
Wasn't thinking of you in particular Andy, though I think something along those lines has been posted on several occasions over many years on here (I can't remember exact details though!).
One other interesting point to make about the guide is the ordering of species along, somewhat, habitat based lines i.e. starting with 'Marine and coastal' and then going through 'Freshwater' to 'Land'. It's actually still somewhat in a 'normal' order (the passerines are all still in the second half, even the ones that live in freshwater habitats). It does mean that some groups that might ordinarily be far apart in a field guide but close together in the field are a bit nearer each other in this book (e.g. rails and herons, skuas and petrels).
"jizzy" in-habitat illustrations are actually frequent in pre-Collins guides as well. I've misplaced most of my oldest guides, but still have my 1970 version of The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe. It has numerous such illustrations, e.g. on the bottom of p. 131 is an illustration titled "flock of Sanderlings and Ringed Plovers on a beach." (The book was illustrated by the American artist Arthur Singer, who also illustrated the 60s era Birds of North America by Robbins & Brunn, afaik the first guide to put maps, text, and illustrations all on the same page).
More to the point of the present thread, I have the eighth edition of Simpson and Day's Birds of Australia. It utilizes in-habitat jizzy illustrations to a greater extent than any other guide I've seen (except the photo-based Crossley guides). Not sure if the pre-Collins editions of that guide did the same, but it wouldn't surprise me.
MJB
Well-known member
That's what struck me, too, and I'll be using it in August and September when Pete Colston and I do an old farts trip to the Kimberley, but also stop off at Broome Obs!
Does anyone know if there will be an app version with sounds, anytime soon?
MJB
Murray Lord
Well-known member
Not any time soon. The authors have said it has been discussed, but it will be a decision the publishers make once they have an idea of sales numbers for the book.
Mind you I am not sure if good sales of the book or bad sales of the book would make an app version more likely! Probably they wait until we've all bought the book version before asking us to pay for it a second time.
MJB
Well-known member
Hi, Murray - thanks for the info!
Any chance of you being up in the Top End, Kimberleys, or Broome mid-August to late September?
MJB
aegithalos
Well-known member
Yes, that is a good aspect in that group. However, the range of illustrations for the large gulls, especially kelp gull and Pacific gull, is much less complete, and these are commoner species in Australia. Eight species of vagrant gull each get about as much text and illustration as each of the three breeding species. Using just this book, how would one tell that a subadult large gull was eg kelp rather than vagrant eg lesser black-backed? Comparisons within the text are mostly with respect to other ages of the species under discussion, rather than same age of different species. Much of the text in Collins is to do with comparisons with other species.
Keith
mjh73
Well-known member
In a word, no.
It's really a simplified guide for someone with a casual interest. It does not cover all birds, and the information is pretty limited for those it does.
That said I have a copy of an earlier edition as it was handy to have something small and accessible for my kids.
My recommendation would be go to your local QBD or equivalent discount bookstore and have a look at what's on the shelves and suits your needs.
For reference....
My 'in the car' book is the Australian Bird Guide. It is the most up to date, very thorough but also massive and a bit too obsessive about covering vagrants and 'things that might be vagrants at some point'!
Previously my 'in the car' book was Pizzey & Knight, which I still refer to as well as ABG.
My 'in the bag' guide is Slater as I quite like the illustrations and it's a really convenient size, and comes with a plastic cover (at least mine did)
I have the Morecambe app on my phone which I use mainly for call reference in the field (the illustrations are laughable and put me off ever having the book)
I had Simpson & Day (it was the guide I could get easily in the UK ~20 years ago before we moved here) but recycled it to a friend long ago to reduce the frequency she pestered me to ID birds for her!
Last edited:
Mysticete
Well-known member
I recall using Simpson and Day on my first Aussie trip, and found it did a pretty good job. I do REALLY like the Australian Bird Guide, in fact I've been flipping through it lately while students do make-up lab quizzes. I'd rank that book as really one of the best overall field guides out there, on a global level. But it's not really a book that is easy to carry into the field as already stated, so is better either as a home reference to double check sightings or prepare for a trip.
thanks! that helps a lot!!
Winterdune
Well-known member
Can I ask what the changes are in the Revised Edition of The Australian Bird Guide? Here in the UK it's a lot easier to get the 2017 version rather than the 2019 one for some strange reason...
Thanks
Sean
Thanks
Sean
MJB
Well-known member
The revised edition has an index that actually functions...
I got my revised edition (it has a red diagonal flash in the top right of the front cover with 'REVISED EDITION' in white) in Perth in 2019, a couple of day after we landed. I had to hunt for it, even then, possibly because retailers were wanting to sell their stock of the 2017 version. On the other hand, several didn't know there was even a revised edition out, and so I went to several afterwards to show them the cover and the ISBN.
MJB
Murray Lord
Well-known member
Nothing major. Typos corrected and a couple of extra images added (a tern in flight I think - not sure if there are others) or corrected where they had been printed under the wrong species first time around (a prion head and an albatross in flight from memory).
What a shameful con. That's a reprint with corrections, not a new edition.
Charles Harper
Régisseur
...And now there's the Australian Bird Guide, Concise Edition (Davies, et al 2022). What do y'all think?
Jim Martin
Friend of the auk
Just on this ancient thread (which has miraculously popped up from nowhere – thank you Charles Harper), I've been told by CSIRO that my advance copies of the revised edition of Australian Bird Guide is en route. This will be on sale in the UK and US from October this year.
Attachments
Murray Lord
Well-known member
Since no one else has replied, I'll add a comment. I think they've done an excellent job on the concise edition, in terms of making it very small but still maintaining large illustrations. It includes all the species they regard as residents or at least annual visitors to Australia, which I think is a sensible approach. Of course a lot of information is left out, but that's inevitable.
Similar threads
