Oman bird list: the official list of birds of the Sultanate of Oman, Edition 7

摘要

Neither the title of this book nor the sub-title do it justice. This is a seriously well-researched and presented work, akin to an avifauna. Anyone wanting to do a similar treatise for their country or region could do no better than to follow this as an example. First, a little history. The first Oman Bird List, published in 1986 by David Foster, brought up to date the status of birds since the publication of The Birds of Oman by Michael Gallagher and Martin Woodcock (Quartet Books, London 1980). It was also in 1986 that the Oman Bird Records Committee was formed to collect and evaluate all records reported in the Sultanate. Subsequent OBLs were published in the 1990s and 2000s under the authorship of Foster, then Jens Eriksen, David Sargeant and Reginald Victor, who set the high standard we can enjoy today in the Oman Bird List 7. The basis is over 455,000 records amassed in the records committee's computerised database. We should not forget Effie Warr. She started the bird list as a card index in 1971 'for her own interest'. Little did she know that it would help spawn, in my opinion, one of best country bird reports in the world.