 Trade In this Item for up to £15.00
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Birds of Melanesia: Bismarcks, Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia (Helm Field Guides) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £15.00, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This new Helm Field Guide covers the species-rich Melanesia region of the south-west Pacific, from New Caledonia and the Solomons through the Bismarcks to Vanuatu, an increasingly popular destination for tours and travellers and one that has never before had complete field-guide coverage. The cover star is the Kagu, the region's most iconic bird species and a highly sought-after endemic of New Caledonia. Superb colour plates illustrate the 650 species that occur in the region, allied with concise identification text and a series of distribution colour bars. For anyone travelling to this far-flung Pacific region, this book is indispensable.
About the Author
Guy Dutson is an ornithologist and tour-leader, and is the world's leading authority on the birds of the south-west Pacific, a region in which he has described or rediscovered several species. He has led expeditions to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, in the course of which he rediscovered the Superb Pitta on Manus. Expeditions to Indonesia and the Philippines led to the rediscovery of the Tanahjampea Monarch and the find for which he is perhaps best known, the Cebu Flowerpecker. In 2008 Dutson described a new species, the Vanikoro White-eye.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Melanesia is one of those regions that most experienced birders would have some trouble pinpointing on a map. In fact before I picked up this book I did not realise I'd visited the area already! It covers some 108,000 sq km with many islands, although dominated by the Bismarcks and New Caledonia. Most of these arose from submarine volcanoes and are generally steep and bird-rich, although some are coral atolls and are relatively poor in birds.
This book is the first field guide to cover all of Melanesia and it features 501 species, of which 377 are resident. Significantly 204 of these are endemic to the region. Helm did produce a much smaller field guide in 1999, but that just covered the Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia - so this new work covers an additional 139 species.
In pure geographical terms, Melanesia often includes continental New Guinea, but this book just covers the islands which could perhaps be referred to more precisely as Island Melanesia. A series of maps clearly shows those areas that are included: Admiralty, St Matthias and Bismarck islands off New Guinea, the Solomon Islands including Bougainville and Temotu (Santa Cruz), Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
The layout is the typical Helm format of text facing illustrations by Richard Allen, Adam Bowley, John Cox and Tony Disley. These are absolutely superb, and although there are around eight species per page, the book does not feel crowded. Many of the plates are arranged by island group for convenience, although this takes a while to get used to at first. The text here simply describes the main identification features, although ignores voice. Sub-specific differences are also noted here.
I am often disappointed when field guides do not include maps, but here the author uses a series of 14 distribution bars in six different colours to indicate status on each island grouping. This is a great idea and works really well. Only extreme vagrants don't benefit from this. The same information is displayed in the introductory chapters by use of a very useful table that spans 14 pages. There is also a five-page gazetteer.
The back half of this book is devoted to more advanced information on each species, with detailed descriptions, comparisons with similar species, voice, habits, conservation status and range. The author uses the IOC names as his framework, but also gives alternatives, as well as the French name and a local name where the species has a very restricted range.
Additional chapters provide useful information about each of the island groups, together with background on the habitats and climate and conservation. One might imagine that being remote, these islands would face few conservation threats. In fact 13% of the resident bird species are listed as globally threatened - and importantly that relates to 23% of the endemic species. The main problems that need to be addressed are forest loss and the introduction of alien predators.
This is one of the best field guides I have seen in recent years. Given the significant challenge of being comprehensive (for example the Solomon Islands archipelago consists of over 900 islands!) it makes everything really easy to understand. It incorporates all of the features that you need and has been produced at a price that compares very favourably.
This book is the first field guide to cover all of Melanesia and it features 501 species, of which 377 are resident. Significantly 204 of these are endemic to the region. Helm did produce a much smaller field guide in 1999, but that just covered the Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia - so this new work covers an additional 139 species.
In pure geographical terms, Melanesia often includes continental New Guinea, but this book just covers the islands which could perhaps be referred to more precisely as Island Melanesia. A series of maps clearly shows those areas that are included: Admiralty, St Matthias and Bismarck islands off New Guinea, the Solomon Islands including Bougainville and Temotu (Santa Cruz), Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
The layout is the typical Helm format of text facing illustrations by Richard Allen, Adam Bowley, John Cox and Tony Disley. These are absolutely superb, and although there are around eight species per page, the book does not feel crowded. Many of the plates are arranged by island group for convenience, although this takes a while to get used to at first. The text here simply describes the main identification features, although ignores voice. Sub-specific differences are also noted here.
I am often disappointed when field guides do not include maps, but here the author uses a series of 14 distribution bars in six different colours to indicate status on each island grouping. This is a great idea and works really well. Only extreme vagrants don't benefit from this. The same information is displayed in the introductory chapters by use of a very useful table that spans 14 pages. There is also a five-page gazetteer.
The back half of this book is devoted to more advanced information on each species, with detailed descriptions, comparisons with similar species, voice, habits, conservation status and range. The author uses the IOC names as his framework, but also gives alternatives, as well as the French name and a local name where the species has a very restricted range.
Additional chapters provide useful information about each of the island groups, together with background on the habitats and climate and conservation. One might imagine that being remote, these islands would face few conservation threats. In fact 13% of the resident bird species are listed as globally threatened - and importantly that relates to 23% of the endemic species. The main problems that need to be addressed are forest loss and the introduction of alien predators.
This is one of the best field guides I have seen in recent years. Given the significant challenge of being comprehensive (for example the Solomon Islands archipelago consists of over 900 islands!) it makes everything really easy to understand. It incorporates all of the features that you need and has been produced at a price that compares very favourably.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
