Field guides

["Philip Veerman" <>]

My review (1995) of the Taylor & Day, National Parks Association of the ACT "Field Guide to The Birds of the ACT" is in CBN 20:39-41.

 

That lists some of its interesting features which certainly include pocket size and local scope, which part of the enquiry was about. Some of the things that I suggested should be corrected include: fixing up some of the status indicators (more relevant now that the status of many species has changed since then), giving sizes for birds (the little symbols for size groups is far too vague), expanding the text for many species, being a bit more consistent between the text and the illustrations, moving "powerful yellow legs" from Black-shouldered Kite to Grey Goshawk. removing the significant error that the Buff-banded Rail is "the largest local member of the family" (the Swamphen is), maybe even removing the back cover reference to the author being "Canberra's best known bird watcher".  A whole lot of things like that. If they have been fixed and I missed this I apologise, I did not buy the update. Come to think of it, I did not buy the original either, I won it in the monthly COG meeting raffle.

 

Philip