Basics: 1974, softcover, 160 pages, 8 color and 4 b&w plates, 73 species, no range maps

As noted inside the book, this is the first field guide to represent the birds of the Seychelles islands. An excellent introduction to the history, habitats, conservation, colonization, and evolutionary tendencies are given in the initial 47 pages.

This field guide covers the endemic and resident birds, but not all the migrants and vagrants (up to 200) that have occurred on these islands. Of the 12 plates, four of them are in black-and-white, which depict the seabirds.

Despite its age compared to recent field guides for these islands, the text is still good. It is in-depth, and offers substantial historical, distribution, habitat, and behavioral information on the endemics. Many of the birds receive full 1-2 pages of coverage, which is uncommon in a field guide.

There are better field guides (Skerrett, Sinclair), but this book holds a special place because it was the first, much of itstext is still useful and, it was written while one of its endemic birds (Aldabra Brush-Warbler) was still known to exist, having last been seen in 1983. ( )