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Hello all,
I've had some ideas about field guides. There are problems
and errors in all the field guides that have come out. One good reason for this
is that it must be a bloody hard thing to do (obviously no first hand experience
on my part!) The author of a fieldguide may be an expert on some of the birds
but they are never expert on all the birds, hence the weak points that are
inherent in all the field guides. I've thought of some ideas that might solve
the field guide problem.
1- HANZAB could
be released as a field gude at the end of its publication period. This might
have already been mooted- I've been out of the loop for a while. When the text
is compressed into the necessary details for identification and the plates are
reduced in size I think this would make an excellent field guide. It would have
to be better than the preceding field guides because of the resources and the
number of people that have been responsible for producing it. Experts on the
various birds covered have run their eye over the work before it has been
published thus greatly reducing the risk of major blunders slipping through,
which unfortunately happens with all the field guides.
2- WEBSITE FIELD
GUIDE- What if a website fieldguide was created. Obviously fieldguide would be a
bit of a misnomer as most people don't lug their PC out with them when they're
birdwatching. The advantage of a webpage guide is that it could be continually
updated and corrected as people located mistakes and errors. It would thus have
the advantage of many, many contributors in fact anyone who could get access to
the internet. It could be continually upgraded and corrected as people
contributed by notifying the poor sod who would be responsible for the massive
website. Would this be the problem? Would the site be too large? Users could
print out the guide for use in the field. I guess the lack of colours in
printouts (given the cost of colour ink) could limit its use in the field also.
3- 3D
IDENTIFICATION - I've had another thought re field guides. We now have an
abundance of not quite up to scratch field guides that are all trying to do the
same thing. If we need any more field guides I think we need a different type of
guide that presents in a different way. Apparently there is software that is
able to turn 2d photos or images into 3d images which rotate around. So, if for
example you had a series of photos of a bird from ten different angles, this
software would be able to turn it into a 3 dimensional bird that you could spin
around on your computer to see all sides of the bird concerned - front, back and
sides. How is that for science fiction bird identification! I hope I see this
field guide in my lifetime!
Food for thought.
Mick Todd
P.S. Note that my email address has changed to
Michael Todd
Tropical Savannas CRC
c/o CSIRO
PO
Box 780, Atherton, Qld, 4883
Phone- (07) 40918837
Email-
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