Photographic Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia. Morten Strange
loss, a small range or population, and hunting and trapping. Unfortunately, most birds are unable to defend themselves. This is where Bill Oddie's enjoyment factor comes in. Birdwatching is fun, exciting, intellectually stimulating and as more people take up the interest they wilt tend to appreciate the natural world more. This has happened in the West and is now happening in the East.
But first of all, reliable data is necessary before action can be taken. Together with BirdLife International, local nature societies and birdwatching clubs continuously document the status of selected species and sites as part of the Asian Red Data book project and surveys for Important Bird Area inventories.
In this era of globalisation, national efforts are not enough. The rich biodiversity is available for everybody to enjoy and likewise we all have a responsibility to monitor and protect it. Birdwatchers from elsewhere can visit Southeast Asia to enjoy what the region has to offer, and they should, in turn, make their expertise and observations available to national agencies. Once we know where to direct our priorities, we can initiate programs to reverse the decline of so many beautiful birds.
We must stop the indiscriminate developing of natural bird habitats, cease polluting the environment and start rebuilding what has already been damaged. We must heed the advice of those who have studied biodiversity and take into consideration the environmental effects of development just as seriously as we take the advice of economists and technicians before making decisions on how to progress.
In 1997, the Southeast Asian region experienced an economic setback partly due to an unbalanced and consumer-focused type of development. One hopes that the next bout of economic growth will be more sensitive to a total quality of life, including an appreciation for our natural heritage, the diversity of life, the health of the environment and the well-being of the other lifeforms around us—including the birds.
Baya Weaver at nest entrance.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Area covered
For the purpose of this book we have adopted the generally accepted system of dividing the world into 6 zoo geographical or faunal regions. Modified from Viney, Phillipps and Lam (1994) the regions are as follows:
Figure 1; Faunal regions of the world
| Regions | Subregions |
| Australasian | Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Oceanic Islands |
| African | Africa and Madagascar |
| Neotropical | Central and South America |
| Nearctic | North American and Greenland |
| Oriental | South and Southeast Asia |
| Palearctic | Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia |
In the text, different sections of the Asian continent are referred to as in Figure 2 (opposite, top). The faunal region of special interest here is the Oriental region. This region is usually defined to include South and Southeast Asia from Pakistan east to Borneo and Bali. The northern limit is the Himalayan mountain range and south China. Inskipp, Lindsey and Duckworth (1996) use the Yangtze river as the northern boundary and include the transitional subregion of Wallaces, i.e. Eastern Indonesia between Bali and Irian Jaya. Thus defined, the Oriental region has the extension as shown in Figure 3 (previous page, bottom).
Figure 2: Subregions of the Asian continent
Figure 3: The Oriental region
Birding is a social activity.
Within the Oriental region, the book covers Southeast Asia, an area defined for this purpose to include the following countries and territories shown on the map on pages 2-3.
The term Southeast Asia usually includes the country of Indonesia, Indonesia however straddles two very different faunal regions and is treated separately in another volume.
Nomenclature, taxonomy and sequence
For nomenclature, taxonomy and sequence our main reference was King, Dickinson and Woodcock (1975). Since this book does not include the latest taxonomic changes, small adjustments have been introduced, mainly following Lekagul and Round (1991) and MacKinnon and Phillipps (1993). Therefore we have placed fantails and monarch flycatchers in their own families, Rhipiduridae and Monarchidae respectively, a practice long ago accepted as standard. Darters, barn owls, Asian barbets, fairy bluebirds, weavers, munias and buntings have also been allocated their own families.
We are aware of the considerably more radical taxonomic changes inspired by new DNA-based research into the relationships between birds. This information has led to a very different taxonomic system published in Sibley, G. and Monroe Jr. B. (1990), Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World. This system was also adopted by Inskipp, Lindsey and Duckworth (1996), by Lim and Gardner (1997) and by Robson (2000). However, this taxonomy is by others deemed to be provisional and full of uncertainties' (Jürgen Haffer, Handbook of the Birds of the World: Vol. 4 p. 22), so until the experts agree we believe it will be most reader-friendly to follow the established system.
Where names differ significantly between the different systems, the alternative name has been mentioned in brackets for easy reference. Efforts have been made to provide correct, brief and user-friendly information, but it is not necessarily complete. Therefore, this list of alternative names does not include names no longer in use or mainly used outside this area (e.g. in India). Please refer to the titles listed in Selected Bibliography for this information.
Regarding the order in which the bird species are listed, it is important to note that all our main reference sources for Southeast Asia uses the 'buntings-last' sequence, as is adopted here. Contrary to that, Andrew, P. (1992) The Birds of Indonesia: A checklist (Peters' Sequence) Indonesian Ornithological Society, Jakarta, which is re-printed in Jepson and Ounsted (1997), provides our main source of reference for our twin volume, A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Indonesia. This book therefore lists birds according to the somewhat different 'crows-last' sequence.
Family and genus
The letter F: is short for family, and all Latin families end in '-idea'. The Latin family of the bird is rarely referred to during casual birdwatching. A birdwatcher would not say 'a member of the Apodidae family just flew over', he would use the term 'swift'. Nevertheless, the family of the bird is an important piece of information for the field observer and is therefore included. While almost all Pycnonotidae are labelled bulbuls in their common names, it might not be clear to readers that robins, shortwings, shamas, chats and forktails all belong to the Turdidae or thrush family. So only by looking at the Latin family name does their relationship become clearer.
Notice that mynas are part of the Sturnidae family, named after the starlings; these two groups are in fact closely related. Eagles, hawks, buzzards, kites, harriers and vultures are not different families, but all part of the large Accipitridae family.
Birds are divided into genera within each family. There is no English word for this subdivision, which can only be determined by studying the first of the Latin names. Only a few birds such as cochoas (F: Turdidae) and prinias (F: Sylviidae) use their genus name as their common name also, for example, the Green Cochoa,