birding-aus

Re: [Birding-Aus] Birding in Borneo – Part 1 - The Borneo Bird Festiva

To: Chris Sanderson <>
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Birding in Borneo – Part 1 - The Borneo Bird Festival, 10-15 October 2009
From: Carl Clifford <>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:58:40 +1100
Also launched at the BBF, was "A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the Sepilok Forest, by Cede Prudente, Robert Ong & Borneo Bird Club, pub. Sabah Forestry Department. While nowhere as comprehensive as Myers' and Phillipps' books, it is a handy little guide if you are just making a quick trip to the Sepilok area, or, are like me, a sucker for a bird book.

Cheers,

Carl Clifford


On 22/10/2009, at 4:35 PM, Chris Sanderson wrote:

Hi David,

Part of the point of the Borneo Bird Festival was to launch these two new
guides, and I have to say they are both fairly good.  Like the Aussie
guides, neither is perfect, and both do some species better than the other.
I honestly couldn't recommend one over the other, however I did go with
Myers because the general consensus was that her images were a little more accurate/useful. We did notice on a number of occasions the Myers guide was
a little out of date with information, for example, Javan Myna was
considered not present in Sabah, but we saw many Javan Mynas in the area. I guess if you prefer good images, possibly lean towards the Myers book, and if you prefer good text, the Phillips book, but if you are in doubt, why not
get both?

Regards,
Chris

ps. insert usual disclaimer about having no financial interest in either
guide.


On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 3:12 PM, David Adams <> wrote:

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Gary Wright
<> wrote:
Hi David
Can you give the details of the field guides you mentioned?

Historically, two books have been commonly used:

"A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and Bail"
John MacKinnon & Karen Phillipps
This book is out of print and hard to obtain. The binding falls apart
and you're really left wishing for a modern guide.

"A Pocket Guide to the Birds of Borneo"
Compiled by Charles M. Francis - published by the Sabah Society.
This is a tiny pocket book with the plates from the (enormous) "Birds
of Borneo" by Smythies - I think from the 1950's. By now, it's not all
that useful.

Robson's South-East Asia guide was the only modern guide available
until recently - but doesn't cover the Bornean endemics. (I like
Robson and it's been well worth taking to Borneo.) Now there are two
new guides. I've ordered both but have seen neither:

"Birds of Borneo: Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak, and Kalimantan"
Susan Myers - Her new blog is at
http://birdtourleader.blogspot.com/

"Phillipp's Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei
and Kalimantan"
Quentin Phillipps

I'm looking forward to seeing these books, hearing what other people
report about them and, ultimately, field testing them!
===============================
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: 
===============================

===============================
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: 
===============================

===============================
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