The Herons Handbook
by James Hancock and James Kushlan
Paintings by Robert Gillmor and Peter Hayman

A guide to herons on every continent except Antarctica, all 60 species as recognized by the book, it is a thorough treatment of each one. Each species has a breathtaking color illustration, many times an additional black and white illustration, the common name, genus and species name, alternate common names, when and who first described it as species, maps illustrating range (including directions of migration and areas of casual occurrences), several paragraphs describing in detail their physical appearance, notes on their distribution and population, migration, habitat, behavior flying, feeding, and breeding, descriptions of nests, eggs, and young, and a note or two on taxonomy. Subspecies are noted as well; for instance a two page color range map depicts the 30 subspecies of the green-backed heron, found throught the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and several Pacific and Indian Ocean island groups. (From Amazon review By Tim F. Martin)

In this book the authors reveal their new discovery that the East Africa the Reef Heron interbreeds with the Little Egret in some part of its range. Many other hitherto unreported observation about this fascinating family of birds are disclosed here, making the Herons Handbook an essential and unique guide to further field identification.

Hardback, 1984, 288pages, very good condition