Australian Bird Guide: Concise Edition

Although there are many bird books available for birders visiting Australia, the best by far is The Australian Bird Guide. However, this book is somewhat too large, heavy and bulky for use in the field. Even taking with you would add weight to your luggage. Thankfully, a concise version of this field guide has now been released and I was fortunate enough to visit northern Queensland earlier this year and have a copy of this book to take with me.

The main thing to notice about this concise guide is the difference in size, being about half the size and thickness of the original guide. It also weighs less than 500 g compared with the original being about three times this, making it much easier to slip into a pocket or backpack without adding any noticeable bulk.

The plates, as in the original, are superb and although the species accounts are much reduced in this version, this doesn’t take anything away from the usability of the guide in the field. Each still gives a distribution map, a brief text description covering distribution and habitat, a succinct description of voice (including transcription of sound), and illustrations with notes on age, sex, and identification characteristics. The taxonomy is more up to date that the original guide, with newly split species such as the Hornbill Friarbird and Torresian Kingfisher, both of which I was lucky enough to see, included. In order to make this book more concise, there are around 200 species fewer included than in the original, though these are vagrants and species with very restricted ranges on less visited Australian territories such as the Lord Howe Woodhen, and so these aren’t noticeable for the majority of visiting birders. 

Although the original The Australian Bird Guide is still worthy of a place on any birder’s bookshelf as a reference when they are revising for a trip or on returning and want to check their photos or notes, this concise guide is an invaluable piece of kit that no birder undertaking a trip to Australia should be without. Now, if they could just follow in the Collins Bird Guide’s footsteps and bring out an app version too …

Book reviewed by Neil Calbrade