Too Many Bird Books

This is a chronicle of encounters with a lot of bird books, in fact a lifetime of such encounters. The world of bird books is vast and varied, defying coherent description. The author’s qualification for making this attempt to describe it is that he owns several hundred of them, gathered over more than 70 years. To help make sense of this obsession, the describing of the books is linked to a life in which traditional birdwatching (and book hunting) went on, in different places, and in between other things.

Some non-bird experiences are recounted, to show this is the story of a real person. If further qualification for authorship is needed it is surely the distinction of having been bitten, quite seriously, while birdwatching, by a fox. Who else, among today”s legion of bird-book creators, can claim that badge? Apart from that event, and no less damaging an experience, the author has tried to chair a committee that recommends names for Australian birds. More than 100 images are assembled to tell their own story: birds, people, places, book inscriptions, scenes.

There are chapters about New Guinea, cassowaries, the fabled Ibis of ancient Egypt, birds and national boundaries, field guides, the bird art of Ellis Rowan (the Australian flower painter), quests and challenges, the uses of bird photography, and some things that are no longer as certain as they once were.