Book, Binocular and Clothing Reviews - Birding Australia’s Islands

The Publisher’s View: A thoroughly entertaining personal account of the author’s birding expeditions to some of Australia’s very special islands. She hasn’t attempted to include every one of the 8,371 islands of Australia but she has visited the country’s most extreme islands: the most southerly (Macquarie), the most northerly (Boigu, which just pips Christmas by one degree), the most westerly (Cocos) and the most easterly (Norfolk). Her aim in selecting the islands was very simple: to include those where she’s had fun birding; where she has seen lots of birds, several ‘lifers’ (her own life list of birds encountered in the wild), islands with birds never seen before in Australia or some where she had special encounters with common birds.Though Sue Taylor is herself a “twitcher”, Birding Australia’s Islands will appeal not only to intrepid birdwatchers who intend to follow in her footsteps, but also to those who are content to sit at home and read about the audacity of others who will fly across Australia’s vast continent in the hope that one individual bird will still be there waiting for them when they arrive. Illustrated with beautiful close-up photographs of species and habitats, Sue Taylor describes her adventures on 22 of Australia’s islands with humour and irrepressible enthusiasm. There are detailed and locator maps of every island featured In Birding Australia’s Islands

The Author: Sue Taylor is a keen birdwatcher and twitcher. She has seen over 800 Australian birds on her travels throughout Australia and its territories. After a series of administrative jobs, she embarked on a freelance writing career in 1998 and has since written short stories, newspaper articles and four books on birdwatching

Fatbirder View: :”A thoroughly entertaining personal account of the author’s birding expeditions to some of Australia’s very special islands” say the publishers and this is a fitting apposite summary. I’ve read dozens of twitching quests and ‘big years’ and the vary between well-written and risible so it’s a pleasure to find simple but meticulous prose and presented so much more interestingly by being restricted to outlying islands many with their access issues and endemic ‘needed’ birds. Ms Taylor doesn’t supress her ‘dips’ and is happy to share her lows as well as highs.

Well-illustrated with some great bird photos as well as the authors own snaps of locations etc. this fun and informative read is also an introduction to the joys of the antipodes. It makes my only recently cancelled trip even more sore include a great write up of Tasmania and Bruny island which were particular targets of my own.

Thoroughly recommended.

Buy this book from NHBS Fatbirder