Birds of New Guinea: including Bismarck Archipelago and Bougainville
Book by Phil Gregory
2nd ed. 2025. Lynx Nature Books. 477p. Flexbound. Prices vary: $72 at Buteo. from $55.80-$72.99 elsewhere.
This review is largely descriptive since I have limited experience in NG. The information in the book seems reasonable: “Covers all 970+ species known to occur, including 570 endemics, 5 introduced, 2 newly described and 75 vagrants. … Over 1800 illustrations, including many new and revised plates, providing excellent visual coverage of the fauna.”
The color paintings, that seem excellent, and the detailed range maps, utilizing 3 colors and arrows for hard-to-see ranges, such as small islands, are on the right hand pages, the facing left pages carry written descriptions of all morphs, and also hit on voice and have ID tips, and if appropriate, list similar species. They also have “QR codes [that] link to complementary audiovisual content for all regularly occurring species”.
The physical book is very flexible, easy to handle, but it IS somewhat tightly bound so that the rightmost text is a little too close to the binding crease. Gregory’s book covers all of mainland New Guinea, the World’s second largest island, plus, mostly to the east and northeast, the Bismarck Archipelago (including New Britain, New Ireland, and many other, but smaller islands), as well as Bougainville, and the Solomon Sea islands. The range maps are set on the pages with the color paintings without place names. But combined with the excellent color map (the same one is on both the inside front and back covers) it is easy to see where the bird in question occurs.
In this complex area it is interesting that, at this tropical latitude, some of New Guinea has such high altitudes that there is snow and even glaciers. I worked on a Norwegian freighter all through the South Pacific that stopped here at Lae in 1959. That was my first experience with drinking and women, neither of which I handled at all well. Soused Pacific. Most of my birding was at sea, but when I put down the Norwegian Rignes Pilsner long enough, I do vividly remember a highly-colored Eastern Superb Fruit Dove that collided with one of the masts. Elsewhere days later the countless seabirds, with many Wandering Albatrosses, off of New South Wales (in September) is the most spectacular bird sight I’ve ever seen.
New Guinea certainly has a rich avifauna. This title deals with 11 species of pittas, 71 doves, 59 Old World parrots, 12 white-eyes, and 38 kingfishers.
But to return to the issue at hand, I think this is an excellent book. Gregory has cogent, fascinating, introductory information on climate, habitats, history, sociology, and travel tips for the greater New Guinea region.
One knock on Lynx titles is that the illustrations are largely derivative, from Lynx’s Birds of the World, but one could do worse than lifting materials from THAT magisterial compendium. There are other very good New Guinea publications (Bruce Beehler et al.), but this is the most recent and includes a larger area. Highly recommended.