This book is a celebration of some of the wondrous birdlife found in Australia. We have used over 700 of our photographic images which range through Western Australia, the Northern Territory. Queensland and some from Victoria. These have included recent travel to the Pilbara, Kimberley, the Northern Territory including Kakadu and Queensland’s Channel Country. Captions include the common name, the binomial or scientific name, the individual who described the bird to science (scientific author) and the year. Also, the location where the photograph was taken. Ground zero for scientific names started in 1758 with the publication of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae by the Swedish scientist, Carl Linnaeus. This included adoption of binomial names sourced from Latin or Ancient Greek. Some refused to report in this format and were gazumped by opportunists who took credit for authorship. The English ornithologist John Latham (1740-1837) published A General Synopsis of Birds (1781-1785) which contained 106 of his illustrations. As Latham had not used the binomial name format, others claimed authorship of his birds. He partially recovered by putting out a supplementary index with scientific names. Thirty one of Latham's birds feature in this book. Interest in Australian flora and fauna started to escalate after James Cook's 1770 visit. On board were the naturalist Joseph Banks and the first university educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil, Daniel Solander. Solander had been a student of Linnaeus who modestly called the best and brightest his 'apostles' and sent them forth in the world to study nature. Solander and Banks collected many specimens. Artists were on board to sketch and paint these new novelties of the antipodes. The superb fairy wren was collected off Tasmania in 1777 by the surgeon on Cook's third Pacific voyage. The bird was not described to science until 1782 as the surgeon died of tuberculosis on the voyage. The surgeon's mate did the honours of recording the discovery. After the first fleet arrived in 1788, it was convicts in and bird skins back to England to satisfy the heightened curiosity about this penal colonies' wildlife. One notorious convicted forger turned his skills to painting, both landscapes and natural history. Illustrations, particularly from live specimens, were invaluable for ornithologists trying to determine individual species. Bird identification was very much an export industry with the science done back in England or Europe. English and French exploration voyages also avidly collected Australian bird specimens. The English ornithologist, John Gould (1804-1881) only spent eighteen months visiting Australia but has the most species (63) in this book. Gould came from humble beginnings and built a reputation as a talented 'bird and beast stuffer.' He was entrepreneurial in adopting the new technology of lithography allowing high quality hand painted prints which established him as a successful natural history publisher. Gould came to fame after studying Charles Darwin's finches (Origin of Species) and advising on the individual species from the HMS Beagle voyage. Gould left an assistant, John Gilbert behind to collect specimens after he went back to England. Gilbert was speared and died on an expedition near the Gulf of Carpentaria but not before he collected the famed but now extinct paradise parrot for Gould to describe. Gould's signature bird is our cover model, the Gouldian finch. His wife, Elizabeth died of complications after the birth of their eighth child and the grieving Gould named this finch for her. The artistically talented Elizabeth had meticulously produced many of Gould's published illustrations. The book has over 700 colour photographs of Australian birds.
