birding-aus

Gull & Tern ID - plus booklets

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Gull & Tern ID - plus booklets
From: Trevor Ford <>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:30:18 +1000
G'day,

The suggestions given to Mark about gull and tern identification cover just about all angles. However, Bob Inglis is correct in suggesting in that many of these references are more applicable to northern hemisphere species, although you can get clues and try to extrapolate. Hopefully HANZAB will provide Mark with most of the answers.

The shortcoming of a typical field guide is that there is just not enough room to illustrate how a particular species moults its feather tracts on a monthly (weekly/daily?) basis. This is where expert knowledge comes in, often arriving from the researcher, who has studied a species closely over a period of time, or the artist, who has had to look carefully at what is being depicted. As a layman, I have found it useful to keep in mind that a species somehow has to get from the illustrated non-breeding version to the pristine breeding model - and, with a Common Tern for example, it doesn't drop its carpal bar overnight, or suddenly emerge one morning boasting a fully black cap!

Russell has mentioned my booklet "Shorebirds, Gulls & Terns of Coastal SEQ". This is obviously a wonderful booklet (!!) but does not address the intricacies of plumage other than the most basic non-breeding and breeding plumage. Russell also asks if I can suggest where to get a copy. In fact this booklet was, in part, financed by four councils in SEQ and has been distributed free-of-charge. Each individual council has its own distribution strategy so I cannot be of much help there. It was intended to be given to residents of SEQ, and visitors to the region, to inspire an appreciation of shorebirds, etc., rather than be made widely available but a free pdf of the booklet can be downloaded from my website, www.sunbittern.com by visiting the Publications page. Incidentally, after an initial print run last year of 12,000, a further 6,000 copies were printed two months later. I just had to say that. I should also say that a companion booklet, "Waterbirds & Raptors of Coastal SEQ" is due for publication this May.

This leads me to a question. Russell has said that he cannot find an ISBN, which is because there isn't one. Can anyone out there comment on whether there should be one for this sort of publication? I thought that as it was never going to be sold, so never to be available in a bookshop, and never to be available in a library, other than as a free offering on the front counter, it would not need such a reference number.

Cheers - Trevor Ford




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