For over fifty years 'What Bird is That' has been Australia's most popular bird identification guide. Despite worthy competitors it maintains its place as the book people first turn to when they become interested in Australian birds. And yet to the astonishingly productive Neville Cayley, this was merely a beginning. He planned a major project, a "big bird book" which would contain life histories of every Australian bird with illustrations of every subspecies and plumage stage.
The plates for this mammoth work, over 430 in all, were prepared, but the text was never completed and after Cayley's death in 1950, the project was abandoned. Now, these delicately beautiful and accurately observed paintings are combined with a completed revised and updated text to create an edition of Australia's classic bird reference that is truly a landmark in Australian publishing.
Prominent ornithologist Terence Lindsey has revised and updated Neville Cayley's original text and sets new standards in his concern for detail and accuracy. The work is expanded to include range maps for each species and a new section containing descriptions of each habitat together with colour photographs of most. One of the special pleasures of 'What Bird is That?' for beginners is the arrangement of birds by where they live rather than the traditional arrangement by relationships. This distinctive feature has been preserved in this edition, together with concise notes on each species' distribution, habitat, life history, nesting and food, and the derivation of its scientific name.
While it is indeed a thing of great beauty to be treasured by many generations, this edition of 'What Bird is That? is the reliable reference to which Australian families can continue to turn with assurance as well as pleasures.
