The Compact Australian Bird Guide. Jeff Davies, Peter Menkhorst, Danny Rogers, Rohan Clarke, Peter Marsack and Kim Franklin. 2022. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton, Victoria, Australia. 252 pages. ISBN 9781486312245. Paperback (Au $34.99).
The first comprehensive guide to Australian birds was Neville Cayley’s (1931) What bird is that? The illustrations were rather poor by modern field guide standards and the text was limited, but the book became a best seller and was the only comprehensive guide available for several decades. More recently, several excellent field guides to Australian birds have been published, including the two-volume A Field Guide to Australian Birds by Peter Slater (1970, 1974), A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Graeme Pizzey and Rob Doyle (1980) and The Birds of Australia by Ken Simpson and Nicholas Day (1984).
However, our knowledge of birds continually expands and field guides become dated. In 2017, Peter Menkhorst, Danny Rogers and Rohan Clarke produced The Australian Bird Guide, with illustrations by Jeff Davies, Peter Marsack and Kim Franklin. It is helpful to outline the content of this award-winning guide, as it was the forerunner to the compact guide reviewed here. The Australian Bird Guide (ABG) has detailed introductory sections on identifying birds, birding in Australia (including where to go, equipment, ethical birding and documenting records) and the evolution and classification of Australian birds. The species accounts contain extensive details of size, a description of colour and morphology (including sex and immature/juvenile plumage differences), voice characteristics and notes on behavior, ecology, breeding and distribution. There is also a distribution map for many species. The illustrations are of very high quality; they incorporate sex, immature and subspecies disparities where appropriate and often include birds in flight or in particular postures where this aids or is critical in field identification. Small annotations often direct the reader to key distinguishing features on the illustrations. A glossary and index are provided at the back of the book.
In the few years that this guide has been available, it is probably fair to say that it has become the most widely accepted and used guide to Australian birds, although it has (not surprisingly) attracted some minor criticisms (e.g. Recher 2017). However, one major drawback to this book, as Recher and others have pointed out, is its size (17 x 3.5 x 24.5 cm) and weight. It does not fit easily into a pocket or a backpack on birding trips! To address this deficiency, the same authors published The Compact Australian Bird Guide in 2022 (size: 12 x 1.5 x 19.8 cm), the subject of this review.
The size reduction has been achieved partly by reducing the introductory sections of the book, although the useful visual quick reference guide to bird groups has been retained. The species accounts have also been greatly slimmed down. The text in these accounts now lacks the extensive details of sex and immature/juvenile differences in appearance typical of its predecessor, although these are still shown in the accompanying well-spaced illustrations. The accounts are usually restricted to a brief description of the species’ appearance, habitat and voice, accompanied by a distribution map. The illustrations are those used in the ABG, but mostly without the subspecies variants and with fewer depictions of birds in flight or postures revealing distinguishing characters. I think that the compact guide admirably fulfils its stated purpose of being a concise and portable field guide for experienced ornithologists and an aid for the newcomer to bird watching in Australia (including overseas visitors) in making rapid, accurate field identifications without being swamped by too much detail. I recommend its use for speedy field identification and suggest that birders making more detailed observations and studies of Australian birds also purchase the more comprehensive ABG to keep at home or in the car on field trips to consult on more complex bird identification issues.
Alan Lill
Department of Environment and Genetics
La Trobe University
Australia
Header photo: Gary Stolz/USFWS
Editor’s note:
This volume is published in Australia and New Zealand as The Compact Australian Bird Guide (https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7916/), in North and South America as Pocket Guide to the Birds of Australia by Princeton University Press. (https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691245492/pocket-guide-to-birds-of-australia), and elsewhere in the world as The Australian Bird Guide: Concise Edition (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/australian-bird-guide-9781399406291/).
Suggested citation:
Lill, A. Review of the book The Compact Australian Bird Guide by Jeff Davies, Peter Menkhorst, Danny Rogers, Rohan Clarke, Peter Marsack, and Kim Franklin. Association of Field Ornithologists Book Review. https://afonet.org/2023/04/the-compact-australian-bird-guide/.
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