An Illustrated Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka
| Public interest in the birds of Sri Lanka appears to be growing exponentially with time. Seven decades were to pass from the first comprehensive illustrated treatment of the Sri Lankan avifauna by William Legge in his A History of the Birds of Ceylon (1880) and the publication of George Henry’s A Guide to the Birds of Ceylon, the first comprehensive field guide. Then, in 1994, based on a set of 32 plates and numerous line drawings by Prithiviraj Fernando, Sarath Kotagama published the first truly affordable field guide to the island’s birds. Several others followed in quick succession, including that of Harrison (1999) for Sri Lanka, and those of Grimmett et al. (1998), Kazmierczak (2000) and more comprehensively, Rasmussen & Anderton (2005) for the South Asian region. These were supplemented by a number of photographic works of increasingly better quality. Afficianados of Sri Lankan birds were not stuck for choice. Why then, yet another bird book? | |
In the 16 years that have passed since Kotagama & Fernando’s work, much has changed in Sri Lankan Ornithology. Taxonomic research has shown that the number of endemic species is in fact much higher than previously thought, and the increasing affordability of digital photography has served to make new sightings more easily verifiable. This new knowledge is, up to end 2009, reflected in the present text.
BySarath KotagamaGamini Ratnavira382 pp, 52 Colour Plates, 492 Colour Distribution Mapssize 138 x215 mm 382 pp ISBN 978-955-8576-26-7 Available Now:@ 2000/= per copyField Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka (fogsl)Department of Zoology University of Colombo Colombo o3 Download Sample Pages |
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