I was Aotearoa last week for a geography conference and acquired a NZ
field guide before setting out. This proved to be a bit depressing as
the NZ guide only included about 60 endemic/native/vagrant species
that weren't in P&K. (This included 18 passerines and 8 shags.) The
remaining species not found in P&K were exotic introductions.
This made me wonder if there might be scope for a combined ANZ field
guide. After all, Morecombe includes supplements for Christmas
Island, Macquarie Is etc, (and it is quite possible that Australia and
New Zealand will form some sort of political union at some stage down
the track). If the supplement were done on a compressed basis, as is
the case for Morecombe, it might only require half a dozen colour
plates to cover the additional birds.
For the record, the conference was in Christchurch, and the diversity
of birdlife on the Canterbury Plain was rather limited. Other than
the usual "Australian birds", I saw 2 native ducks and 1 native
fantail. I used the NZ field guide more to ID the European
passerines. Things were a bit better in the Alps - I saw Keas and 2
native passerines around Arthurs Pass.
On the subject of the traditional owners of Arthurs Pass, I found that
the Keas had become even more of a hand full than they were 20 years
ago. Now, when you stop at a lookout at the pass itself, they will be
pulling things off your car while you are standing beside it. If you
try to shoo them from one side of the car, they will just hop over to
the other side where you can't reach them (or they will walk under the
car and get to work there).
I had a far more productive time on a boat off Kaikoura (a bit over 2
hours drive to the north Christchurch) but that is the subject for
another post.
Laurie.
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
