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 Winner of the 2003 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Science Writing.
A history of ornithology is about field science and the experiences of being in the bush with birds. It is about living with birds through gardens and changing urban environments. It includes laboratory and aviary studies, and expeditions to remote parts. Although the stories chosen focus largely on Australia and its avifauna, the book also tells of the place of Australian ornithology in the rest of the world. New Zealand has sometimes been part of the 'Australasia' of the original RAOU, but since the foundation of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand in 1939, has been somewhat independent. A deep time view of 'Australia' includes Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya, and land bridges across Torres and Bass Straits. Of particular interest are the ideas that originated in Australian work, for example, co-operative breeding, but which now inform work in Eurasia, Africa and the Americas.
The twelve historical chapters are interspersed by 'interludes' - views from the perspective of night parrots, lyrebirds and noisy scrub birds, some of Australasia's most intriguing avian personalities. It also includes a 'who's who' of many of the leading people in Australian and New Zealand ornithology and a bibliography of all bird-related journals in Australia.
The book will interest present ornithologists and birdwatchers, whether or not they are members of any bird group or regular Emu readers. Professionals from universities, museums, government natural resource management and conservation agencies and CSIRO will find stories about their institutions. The challenge has been to draw out the interrelationships between natural history societies, publicly funded institutions and the community, to consider their interplay over a century, yet to keep their human face. The personalities (human and bird) and ideas of ornithology are the stuff of its history.
There is a lot more to ornithology than the published word. Campouts, expeditions and congresses have driven Australian ornithology, and stories about these come from oral history, letters, and 'reading between the lines' of published reports. Australian ornithology does not exist in a national vacuum. Many important developments have come from outside Australia, and The Flight of the Emu details international scientific expeditions and the influences of Australian birds on international questions.
Bird studies raise issues of conservation and environmental management, questions of scientific collecting, smuggling and bird protection, and these recur in various ways throughout the century. Bird banding has introduced many to the passion of ornithology as well as providing a method of valuable data-collection about birds. The fun of bird watching, whether it be serious scientific observation, 'twitching' or just a relaxing hobby, is a feature of this book. 'Birdos' (as Australian ornithologists call themselves) have a great sense of humour.
The Flight of the Emu is richly illustrated with about 300 pictures of birds and birdos in action, some in colour. Its clear and friendly text captures many of the important moments of Australian ornithology this century.
Libby Robin is also author of Defending the Little Desert (MUP 1998) and co-editor of Ecology and Empire (Keele University Press & MUP 1997). She is an environmental historian at the Fenner School for Environment and Society at the Australian National University. She has also worked at the National Museum of Australia, the University of London, the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University.
The Flight of the Emu is available from Andrew Isles Natural History Books and is published by Melbourne University Press.
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