THE SHOREBIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife. By John Douglas Pringle.

1987 1st edition. Large 4to (219 x 2198mm). Ppxxviii,692. Colour photographs, b/w line illustrations, distribution maps, bibliography. White titles to black boards, spine titled in white.

This volume "is the largest (of this series) and, in a sense, the most international. Most of the shorebirds that occur in Australia spend about half the year in the northern hemisphere. They inhabit an environment in which the cycle of the tides, rather than the cycle of night and day, is the major influence. Australia's shorebirds include waders on the one hande, and skuas, gulls and terns on the other. Jacanas, oyster catchers, avocets, sheathbills and several other birds form small peripheral groups of species within this structure. The waders are notable for their spectacular migrations, whild gulls and terns are among the most familiar birds of australia's harbours and coasts. Shorebirds tend to be extremely gregarious, wary and unapproachable, fly strongly and swiftly, and seldom swim. Each volume of this series includes a detailed section on the eggs of the species under examination. The series, although wholely new in all aspects of its content, is modelled on Gould's Birds of Australia. "(This book) is both a serious reference book and a magnificent production, designed to give pleasure to a wide audience". This is the 4th volume in the ornithological volumes of The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife.