Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 14: Bush-shrikes to Old World Sparrows

Families covered in this volume are as follows:

• Family Malaconotidae (Bush-shrikes)
• Family Prionopidae (Helmet-shrikes)
• Family Vangidae (Vangas)
• Family Dicruridae (Drongos)
• Family Callaeidae (New Zealand Wattlebirds)
• Family Notiomystidae (Stitchbird)
• Family Grallinidae (Mudlarks)
• Family Struthideidae (Australian Mudnesters)
• Family Artamidae (Woodswallows)
• Family Cracticidae (Butcherbirds)
• Family Pityriaseidae (Bristlehead)
• Family Ptilonorhynchidae (Bowerbirds)
• Family Paradisaeidae (Birds-of-paradise)
• Family Corvidae (Crows)
• Family Buphagidae (Oxpeckers)
• Family Sturnidae (Starlings)
• Family Passeridae (Old World Sparrows)

The 14th volume of the Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) once again treats us to a feast of superb photographs, authoritative text and impressive plates. This volume covers a very diverse group of birds, the vast majority of which are Old World or Australasian in distribution. Indeed, of the families covered, only the crow family includes New World species.

Some of the families are relatively poorly known – so that the Vangas (endemic to Madagascar) with 15 species only have a 21 page introduction, whereas the New Zealand Wattlebirds (three extant species with the north and south island saddlebacks recognised as separate species) receive 28 pages. Another New Zealand family, Notiomystidae, with only one species, the Stichbird Notiomystis cincta generates and impressive 14 pages!

The Foreword, in a marked departure from the usual more scientific topics covered, is a short essay on “Birding Past, Present and Future – a Global View”, in which Stephen Moss sets out to show how birding has gone from the “preserve of a few eccentric enthusiasts to the mass-participation leisure activity of today” in the last 100 years. With some 46 million “birders” in the USA (which sounds unlikely, but the figure has been manipulated (by the US Fish and Wildlife Service) by counting anyone who watches birds in and around their homes as a birder) and some 2.85 million “active birders” in the UK, the essay is not surprisingly focused on material from these two countries. Nevertheless, the essay is wide-ranging and contains something for everyone. I found the analysis of how much money birding generates for various economies of particular interest. In the USA, wildlife-watchers (of whom birders form the vast majority) spend almost US$32 billion in pursuit of their hobby (presumably over their lifetime, though this is not stated), of which nearly US$2 billion goes on optics, but even more – $2.2 billion – is spent on bird food. According to the US Fish and Wildlife survey, overall the impact of wildlife-watching on US economic output is apparently even more, at US$85 billion a year, producing $13 billion in tax revenues and creating some 860,000 jobs. Given the number of hunters that I saw whilst birding in the USA it would have been interesting to have seen a comparison here of what their economic contribution might be compared to wildlife-watchers. According to Stephen Moss, however, these figures are likely to be over-estimates because of the very liberal view of the types of expenditure relating to birding activities that were included. Whether this went as far as to include the number of book cases required to hold all of the volumes of HBW that have ever been sold in the USA I can’t say, but it does give food for thought.

The first family covered in this volume, the bush-shrikes, firmly places the taxonomically controversial “Bulo Burti Boubou” (described as a new species, Laniarius liberatus in 1989) as a morph of Somali Boubou L. erlangeri: a taxon itself so recently recognised as a species that it is treated as a subspecies of the widespread Tropical Boubou L. aethiopicus in the Birds of Somalia (Ash and Miskell 1998) and not mentioned by Sinclair and Ryan (2003). But the settling of this taxonomic issue is just the tip of the iceburg – as HBW14 so well illustrates, such species-limits issues now abound and are increasingly the focus of discussion and study by birders who would not consider themselves as scientists – a theme that was unfortunately not explored in the Foreword of this volume. With increasingly easy access to published papers and other information on the internet, and new tools such as instant access to numerous recordings of the vocalizations of closely related taxa (primarily at the incredibly useful website xeno-canto), almost any intelligent birder with an interest can now delve into the realm of the taxonomist and potentially make significant contributions to our understanding of taxonomic issues.

Two families in particular in this volume – the drongos and the crows –include a significant number of taxa for which there are unresolved taxonomic issues, some of which would have important consequences for bird conservation. For example, how many of the eight subspecies of Slender-billed Crow Corvus enca (a group of poorly-known forest corvids that are distributed from the Greater Sundas to islands of the Philippines and Sulawesi region) should be treated as good species? Based on my own field experience in the region I am convinced that there must be at least four! Indeed, the IOC already recognizes one of these, the endemic Seram taxon violaceus as a separate species, Violet Crow. Philippine populations, however, are still treated as Slender-billed Crow, “pending formal breakup of that polytypic species”.

Once again I sense some inconsistency in the taxonomic treatments of the various families – no doubt as a result of different approaches by the various authors. For example, within the starlings the Hill Mynas in the genus Gracula are now represented by five species, (including endemic species on the west Sumatran islands of Nias and on Enggano and in Southwest India/Sri Lanka) even though some taxonomists may feel that the justification for this treatment has not been adequately dealt with in the scientific literature. In contrast, when it comes to the black corvids in the genus Corvus, HBW mostly takes a more cautious approach. Hence, as mentioned above none of subspecies of Corvus enca have been split, and nor have they split any of the subspecies of Large-billed Crow C. macrorhynchos, even though the IOC and recent field guides (e.g. Rasmussen and Anderton 2005, Robson 2008, Myers 2009) have recognized a number of different species, most notably Eastern Jungle Crow Corvus levaillantii, and Indian Jungle Crow Corvus culminates. These splits are still controversial, in part because of the complexity of the issues involved, and it is not surprising that HBW has taken a cautious approach. On the other hand, HBW recognizes another black corvid, the Bismarck Crow Corvus insularis (a split from Torresian Crow C. orru) apparently on the basis of two unpublished manuscripts (though I don’t wish to imply here that I don’t agree with treating C. insularis as a good species) .

The Birds-of-Paradise are one of my favourite bird families, and I was interested to see that HBW recognizes one “new” species, the Foja Parotia Parotia berlepschi. However, I was a little surprised that Growling Riflebird Ptiloris intercedens, a split (recognized by IOC) from Magnificent Riflebird Ptiloris magnificus is not recognized here. The vocalizations of Growling Riflebird are so different from those of Magnificent Riflebird that it seems inconceivable to me that they should be treated as the same species (compare recordings XC38119 with XC38120 at xeno-canto). Also in contrast to IOC, HBW has retained the so-called satinbirds (Loria’s Cnemophilus loriae, Crested C. macgregorii and Yellow-breasted Birds-of-Paradise Loboparadisea sericea) within the Paradisaedae (Birds-of-Paradise): IOC put these three species in their own family, Cnemophilidae (see the December 2009 IOC list (version 2.3)) .

Nevertheless, it has to be recognized that the authors and editors of HBW are working in a time of incredible taxonomic change, and deciding what to include as a species versus a subspecies must often be a vexing task. The IOC list is updated every 3-4 months, with changes to English and scientific names, changes to the names of genera and the addition of newly discovered or split species. Keeping up with that is impossible in a “static” piece of work such as HBW, so the taxonomy followed is inevitably going to be recognized as out-of-date very rapidly. For example, within the next decade it seems likely that within the Corvidae alone there will be an additional ten or more species recognized that are not treated as species by HBW. Despite this, HBW has made a very serious effort to illustrate and describe the vast majority of significantly different taxa that may warrant species status, so that they are included in this impressive piece of work even if not as good species.

A few unfamiliar English names appear in this volume, such as Lauterbach’s Bowerbird Chlamydera lauterbachi, which everywhere else in recent times has normally called Yellow-breasted Bowerbird, White Nile Rufous Sparrow Passer shelleyi (Shelley’s Rufous Sparrow in Sinclair and Ryan 2003; Shelley’s Sparrow in IOC) and Small Ground-Sparrow Pyrgilauda davidiana, one of five species of ground-sparrows in this distinctive high altitude genus of Old World Sparrows that were previously called Snowfinches (a name here reserved for three species in the genus Montifringilla). Most unfamiliar English names in HBW14, however, result from the inclusion of newly recognized species, such as the Masked Bowerbird Sericulus aureus (split from Flame Bowerbird S. ardens), Tablas Drongo Dicrurus menagei (split from Hair-crested Drongo D. hottentottus), Arabian Magpie Pica asirensis (split from Common Magpie P.pica), and Iberian Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cooki (split from Asian Azure-winged Magpie C. cyanus).

As with all recent volumes of HBW this one is well-researched and mostly up to date. But some of the authors are still perhaps unaware that they can access the vocalizations of many bird species on-line. For example, the vocalization of Long-tailed Paradigalla Paradigalla carunculata is available on xeno-canto (XC26333) but in the HBW species account it simply says VOICE: No information available. Perhaps in the last two volumes of HBW cross-reference to vocalizations that are available on this website and at the upcoming Michigan State University Avian Vocalizations Center (AvOCET) could be included.

The illustrations in HBW14 are generally of a very high standard, though there are surprisingly few juvenile plumages depicted. For example, it seems odd that none of the young plumages of Aponis starlings are depicted since these are very distinctive. There is one photograph of an immature Aplonis, but this is hardly that useful. Again, the photography is impressive and there are numerous outstanding photographs, the vast majority taken in the wild (some Indonesian species look like they could be of captive birds). I particularly appreciated the photographs of the variations of bowers and dance floors of the Australasian bowerbirds. They are simply incredible! But I was a little disappointed with a few of the photos of the Birds-of-Paradise and some of one of the world’s most amazing species, the Bornean Bristlehead Pityriasis gymnocephala (the only representative of the only endemic Bornean bird family, Pityriaseidae), since I know that there are definitely better photos available than those that were used. But that is a minor quibble. One photograph that did catch my attention, however, was that of Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise Paradisaea raggiana on page 437: this individual seems very odd and I wonder if it is in fact a hybrid between Raggiana and either Greater Bird-of-Paradise P. apoda or Lesser Bird-of-Paradise P. Minor. As mentioned in the text, members of this genus apparently manage to hybridize regularly.

Overall, as with most previous volumes in this series, Volume 14 of HBW is an outstanding piece of work and will prove to be a major source of reference for birders or for anyone interested in ornithology. I find myself using the various volumes of HBW more often than many of the other books in my library, and I for one am looking forward to seeing the penultimate volume at the end of this year. Unlike some of the other publishers in the bird book business, Josep del Hoyo and his team seem to be incredibly reliable in getting volumes of this series to their readers on time. I guess that means that they have very few siestas in their Barcelona office and are all busy working whilst the rest of Spain is sleeping!

– Reviewed by Frank Lambert

Resources used:

• Ash, J.S. and Miskell, J.E. 1998. The Birds of Somalia. Pica Press, The Banks, Mountfield, UK
• Myers, S. 2009 A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo. New Holland, London and Talisman, Singapore.
• Rasmussen, P.C. and Anderton, J.C. 2005. Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide. Lynx Editions, Barcelona.
• Robson, C. (2008). A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia. New Holland, London.
• Sinclair, I. and Ryan, P. 2003. Birds of Africa south of the Sahara. Struik, Cape Town.