AUTHOR COMMENT

This page for miscellaneous items mostly to assist in use of the field guides. Also to explain reasons for the approach taken in some parts of the books. And occasionally to express support, or to disagree with comments or reviewers or critics.

2. The Christidis and Boles sequence for Australian birds has been used as the overall framework of the book.

Also, on the opening page of each chapter, the birds are grouped in (modified) Christidis and Boles order, giving the user access to an arrangement of the birds in that order, and with family and genus levels indicated by thickness of separating blue lines.

This sequence has been with us for many years, and therefore has been varied somewhat to reflect some recent possibilities of changes.

On the main text pages, birds have been arranged somewat out of this order (but not greatly), in order to put the most look-alike species together, to assist comparison with minimum page-turning.

There are two, quite opposed schools of though on arrangement of birds in field guides. On the one hand, many follow quite rigidly the prevailing order prescribed by the principal birding body for their country ( here Birds Australia / R.A.O.U.) On the other hand, some argue that the birds should be arranged with absolute priority given to placing similar birds togther. In such a guide it has been suggested that True Quails and the Button Quails would be together (usually around 80 pages apart when grouped by families. Or, all the large black-and-white birds together, or , together because they build mud nests (Slater). But DNA studies have shown the Magpie-lark is more closely related to the much smaller monarch flycatchers. So in some books this bird is with other quite large black-and white birds (on appearance); in some with mud nesters (on behavior) and in others, with flycatchers (on evolutionary links).

This guide tries to show and use both approaches. The "quick-guide' on the first page of each chapter following the formal arrangement, but the body of each chapter is re-arranged to group the similar birds (of that chapter) togther. In this respect, it does not go as far as some would like , such putting the Button Quail and True Quail together, far out of their family positions.

However I think most users of guides have come to expect the birds to be roughly within the family arrangement that has prevailed for many years.

Also, there has been some splitting and combining of species, and suggestions that other such changes may follow. New species (elevated from subspecies) include Short-tailed and Kalkadoon Grasswrens, and Western Wattlebird.

In these changes I have tried to keep quite close to HANZAB (publication of Birds Australia), while also taking note of, and being in some instances influenced by, the Directory of Australian Birds (Schodde & Mason (C. S. I. R. O) .

I appreciate the type size is small. The smallest ( the labels around the artwork) is the same size as used in the original larger volume, but he main text is slightly larger. To use an even larger type would greatly reduce the amount of information that can be packed into the book.

COMPLETE COMPACT GUIDE

Re: 1. Not very species shown in first page "Quickguide"to WADERS: Family Groups (chapters) 8 & 9

2. Departure from Cristidis & Boles sequence

3 Type size

The first page, "quick-guide", of each of these sections of the guide, unlike those of other groups, do not show every species. Rather, only each genus is shown, as the minimum. In some genera, several species are illustrated. Unlike other groups, the birds in these chapters, being mostly in non-breeding plumage, are often difficult to identify. So trying to identify using these tiny images, and just one image per species, would often be just too difficult and unreliable. Better to go to the main text pages for this.

By comparison, with many other chapters, especially of the more colourful species, identification can often be direct from the first, "quick-guide" page.

The honeyeaters, for example, are ideal for this treatment, as they are sufficiently distinctive, and have most with the sexes alike, so identification should often be possible from the two introduction pages to their chapter. Here, I found the size comparisons quite fascinating, for while all guides give measurements, it is only when the whole family is set out to the one scale, that one has a true appreciation of the size range within the family, and between the various gerera.

To have shown all the wader species would have taken several more pages. With the book nearing the publisher's total page limit, the space was considered better used elsewhere. However while many of these plainly coloured birds probably could not be reliably identified from tiny first-page drawings, they still served at least two purposes:

1. An appreciation of relative sizes of the waders. Where there is but a single species in each genus box, it can of course be compared with other genera for size, and with the common bird (Willie Wagtail).

But in a few genera, the birds are of greatly differing size, so one must then fall back on using measurements (from main text) and compare these with birds of similar measurements, still using this page. A compromise situation; but, pages availabl;e are not unlimited. Books are printed on large sheets of 16 pages (at least) per sheet, so adding even one more page would have required running another big 16 page sheet through the presses. To be sure I could have filled this with useful information, but then there's the penalty of extra size and weight added to what is intended as a pocket guide....and a couple more dollars onto the price.

So the limits have to be reached somewhere, and it seemed the waders, so alike in non-breeding plumages, really should be identified from the main text pages rather than from the tiny quick-guide illustrations.

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