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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Swissboy" data-source="post: 3480769" data-attributes="member: 4926">Got my copy already, incredibleLynx have really outperformed themselves this time. My copy arrived this morning. So here are some first impressions for those who need to wait somewhat longer:My suspicion that there might be no flight pictures has proved wrong. Some groups, like shorebirds have lots of them that are new. In addition, those that have already been in HBW are included, like for the Caprimulgidae.This is a rather heavy book, and the hard cover adds to its bulk. Thus, excellent for libraries, less so for the field. I have attached three plates as illustrations to some points I want to raise. The scans did not turn out quite the way the actual plates look like, and my attempts to adjust them have had limited success. Anyway, here we go.It strikes me that there are no plate numbers, neither do they have page numbers. So one has to go by the page number of the text page opposite the plates. Not an optimal solution, I think. There is only one size of range map, unlike the solution chosen for the Illustrated Checklist. Thus, some maps look rather empty, yet they all take up lots of space on the illustration page. As a result, some bird illustrations come as rather minute ones, like on the dove page illustrated. There are many more illustrations than what HBW already had in stock. As the shorebird scan shows, there are not only the already mentioned flight pictures, but there are also non-breeding plumages now. The whites are all too often greys instead, just like in the Illustrated Checklist. The tropicbirds scan illustrates this only in part. The whites come across too light here, compared to the plate in the book. Likewise, the yellow (fulvus) morph of the White-tailed Tropicbird is way too dark. Again, just like in the "Checklist". I would think such issues could be solved. A Great White Heron should not come across as a "Great Light-grey Heron".The book measures 23.7 x 16.7 x 3.0 centimeters. (With soft cover it would be about 23.0 x 16.0 x 2.6 cm.) The weight is 1204 grams, thus it is a rather hefty tome. That comes as no surprise with the area and species number covered. Over all, I am very pleased to finally have a book that covers all of "Indonesia" (in the sense of the archipelago, not as a political unit). And even without any immediate travel plans, it will be consulted quite a bit in the near future. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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