Beginners and experienced birdwatchers turn to this guide to identify the birds they see in their backyards and on bushwalking or birdwatching expeditions. Designed to slip easily into a pocket, backpack or glove box. This is a new and updated version of the very popular Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds and includes 64 new or extensively revised colour plates, incorporating all the new birds observed in Australia, including Tasmania and islands and territories since 1986. Also included is a re-organisation of the guide into broad habitats - seabirds, shore birds, inland water birds and bush birds; updated common and scientific names, revised maps, and a new visual index to aid beginners in finding the most appropriate pages in the guide. A must for serious naturalists in Australia, be they beginners or experts.

An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries. From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.

A completely revised and updated edition of a classic. This practical and informative volumne covers all the intriguing mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and inverterbrates that inhabit Australia. More than 100 academic scientists and science writers have contributed their knowledge to this comprehensive book.

"Albatrosses are largely confined to the region referred to by early mariners as the Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties, otherwise known as the Southern Ocean. The single most distinctive characteristic of the albatrosses is that they ride storms. Aside from a few close relatives among the petrels and shearwaters, they are the only animals (of any kind) that do this. They dont evade storms, or flee them, or grit their figurative teeth and hang on through them, they climb aboard and ride them effectively throughout their lives. This work outlines the life histories of these spectacular birds, and explores some of the main strategies and tactics that have evolved to enable them to achieve mastery of one of the most hostile regions on the planet. It describes the 24 species of albatrosses found worldwide, including the most important species from an Australian perspective (Wandering Albatross, Shy Albatross, Black-browed Albatross, Sooty Albatross)"-- Provided by publisher.

Everywhere we go there are birds, and they all have mysteries to be unravelled. These mysteries include the way they look, from bizarre to apparently mundane, why they live where they live, and the things they do, many of which are far too incredible ever to be imagined as fiction. Birds in Their Habitats is a collection of stories and experiences, which introduce fascinating aspects of birdlife, ecology and behaviour. Informed by a wealth of historical and contemporary research, Ian Fraser takes the reader on a journey through four continents: from places as unfamiliar as the Chonos Archipelago of southern Chile and the arid Sahel woodlands of northern Cameroon to those as familiar as a suburban backyard. This is a book of discovery of birds and the places they live. And with humour and personal insight, it is a book about the sometimes strange world of the people who spend a life absorbed in birds.