Yes, Kim, I agree. This may be a good example of the influence of photography on illustrators. If Cayley had been able to start with a selection of silhouette in-flight photos,
even black and white ones lacking plumage detail, rather than just museum specimens, I think he would have treated the subject differently. Colour detail is more important for the small brown birds, where exaggerated colour depiction became the rule for field
guides.
From: Kim Farley <>
Sent: Saturday, 24 January 2026 2:08 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Cc: Canberrabirds <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] Theropod-watching, the MCG and Neville Cayley
Ha! I well remember that illustration of Needletails in Neville Cayley's What Bird is That and which you have reproduced in your cute cartoon. Many of the illustrations in What Bird is That were pretty bad - particularly for 'little brown
birds'. Cayley's Needletails look more like the 'swallows' on willow pattern blue and white china than actual Needletails.
Having said that, I am comparing Cayley's work unfavourably with what came later: notably Slater, Pizzey, Menkhorst
On Sat, Jan 24, 2026 at 1:32 PM Geoffrey Dabb via Canberrabirds <> wrote:
Everywhere I look there are people wanting to talk about birds. Can you believe birds are in the ‘Culture’ column of today’s
Saturday Paper ? They are referred to as ‘theropods’ to add a slightly jarring literary flourish. The item begins with the mistaken ID of a Yellow-rumped Thornbill for a Willie Wagtail by the celebrity who is the main topic. The theropod-watching takes
place at the reclaimed Merri Creek, many years ago known only as the source of the clay for the famous (now infamous) MCG cricket pitch. The same issue has a piece by Bob Brown in his usual grim style. It is about a wind farm. Like the Culture column, this
manages to compress a lot of information into a small space, presumably a preference of today’s younger readers.
‘The fastest bird for horizontal flight on Earth, the white-throated needletail swift, which migrates each year from Central Asia to Australia, including Tasmania,
is listed. Watt’s department says this speedster is vulnerable to extinction because of a 30 to 50 per cent decline in its numbers over recent decades.’
This has reminded me of the old Neville Cayley pictures of them, probably the earliest images that many people had in those days, of this particular theropod.
--
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Emails posted to the list that exceed 2 MB (2,000 kB) in size, including attachments, will be rejected.
All emails distributed via the list are archived at
http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds. It is a condition of list membership that you agree to your contributions being archived.
Canberrabirds mailing list
https://lists.canberrabirds.org.au/mailman/listinfo/canberrabirds
This email and any files transmitted with it may contain confidential information. If you believe you have received this email or any of its contents in error, please notify me immediately by return
email and destroy this email. Do not use, disseminate, forward, print or copy any contents of an email received in error.
|
