For bird

watchers...

The bird watchers of the Port Moresby district we are talking about the feathered species of birds —now have a handbook to help them with their identification.

Surprisingly, Port Moresby has quite a large, and certainly growing, band of bird watchers, and—more sur prisingly—there is an extraordinarily large number of species to watch.

Up to the end of November, 1968, 364 species of New Guinea birds had been recorded in the Port Moresby area, and this represents more than half the species recorded in New Guinea, including West Irian.

You will find them all described in The Birds of Port Moresby and District (Nelson, $4.95). The com piler is Roy D, Mackay, preparator of the Papua and New Guinea Museum, in Port Moresby. He formed the New Guinea Bird Society soon after his arrival in Port Moresby from Sydney in 1964.

Mackay says that it is possible to observe a third of the species found in the Port Moresby area in one weekend. In listing species he follows the order of E. Mayr’s List of New Guinea birds, 1941, but he uses names which are to be published soon in a list of standardised names for New Guinea birds drawn up by Dr. R. Schodde and W. B. Hitch cock.

No doubt other birds have been identified since this list was com pleted. The book is 74 pages and has some illustrations, in black and white.

Two other equally useful hand books for bird watchers now available are. Common Australian Birds, by Alan Bell (Oxford, $6.50) and The Life of the Kookaburra and other Kingfishers, by William Eastman (Angus and Robertson, $3.75), East man, head of the University of Wyoming graphic services depart ment, gathered the information for this well-illustrated book of 64 pages during a photographic tour of Aus tralia. Painted colour plates easily identify each species, and black and white photographs show birds in their natural living places.

Common Australian Birds, is a revised edition of a book first pub lished in 1956, and its special value is in the first-rate colour drawings, by Shirley Bell, of every bird listed.

The layout of the book (218 pages) simplifies rapid identification. The book lists more than 100 of more than 650 native birds.