This is a chronicle of encounters with a lot of bird books, in fact a lifetime of such encounters.
The world of bird books is vast and varied, defying coherent description. The author's qualification
for making this attempt to describe it is that he owns several hundred of them, gathered over more
than 70 years. To help make sense of this obsession, the describing of the books is linked to a life in
which traditional birdwatching (and book hunting) went on, in different places, and in between
other things.
Some non-bird experiences are recounted, to show this is the story of a real person.
If further qualification for authorship is needed it is surely the distinction of having been bitten, quite
seriously, while birdwatching, by a fox. Who else, among today's legion of bird-book creators, can
claim that badge? Apart from that event, and no less damaging an experience, the author has tried
to chair a committee that recommends names for Australian birds.
More than 100 images are assembled to tell their own story: birds, people, places, book inscriptions,
scenes.
There are chapters about New Guinea, cassowaries, the fabled Ibis of ancient Egypt, birds
and national boundaries, field guides, the bird art of Ellis Rowan (the Australian flower painter),
quests and challenges, the uses of bird photography, and some things that are no longer as certain
as they once were.
