birding-aus

The Eighth Edition of Pizzey and Knight

To: L&L Knight <>, birding-aus <>
Subject: The Eighth Edition of Pizzey and Knight
From: Syd Curtis <>
Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:23:10 +1000

> From: L&L Knight <>
> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 20:44:15 +1000
> To: "birding-aus" <>
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] The Eighth Edition of Pizzey and Knight
> 
> One of the key factors for me with bird guide illustrations is the
> extent to which the illustrator get the shape, proportions and body
> attitude right.  The bottom line is whether the gestalt effect matches
> what you see in the field.

So what's the situation in the latest edition with Eastern Whipbirds?

My 1997 (first?) edition shows, left to right, plain brown, no crest,
labelled "imm.";   plain brown except for slight pale above dark throat,
female sign;   normal adult coloured with male sign.

A colleague (zoologist/ nature cons. administrator) with a particular
interest in whipbirds (has them near his residence) was puzzled by the
illustration in his 1999 edition which apparently had the same three
illustrations but "imm" added to the middle one with the female sign.  I
once asked him if he reckoned he could look at a whipbird and say whether it
was male or female.  His succinct answer was, "Only if I saw it lay an egg."

So, has the latest edition fixed things?

Syd
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, 
send the message:
unsubscribe 
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU