Best Fieldguide

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The Collins "Bird Guide - the most complete field guide to the birds of Britain 
& Europe" (ISBN 0 00 711332 3) is certainly a great field guide and mine is 
much used, but I am not sure it "would serve well as a model of how to do a 
guide here" as suggested by Simon Mustoe.   For me, the emphasis of this field 
guide is too much on:
(1) Britain (at the expense of the rest of Europe); to be expected I guess as 
it is now written in English (originally in Swedish)
(2) "where it breeds"  The layout generally starts the description of each 
species with "size" then "where it breeds" then "general description", etc.... 
certainly not the most appropriate layout for an Australian field guide.

For me, Sibley's Guide to Birds & SASOL's Birds of Southern Africa, along with 
the Collins Bird Guide, are all great field guides.


Bob Sothman
Adelaide