Pheasants, Partridges, and Grouse: A Guide to the Pheasants, Partridges, Quails, Grouse, Guineafowl, Buttonquails, and Sandgrous

Description

This guide brings together, for the first time within a single volume, a comprehensive review of all the world's pheasants, partridges, quails, grouse, turkeys, guineafowl, buttonquails, sandgrouse, and the enigmatic Plains-wanderer--over 250 species in all. The group includes some of the world's most familiar and beautiful birds, such as the Indian peafowl and the stunning tragopans, as well as some of the rarest and most threatened. This book concentrates on detailed identification and distribution, but also highlights conservation issues where relevant. The seventy-two color plates, by leading bird illustrators, show male, female, juvenile, and subspecies plumages, and form the finest set of illustrations of these birds to date. There is also a color distribution map for each species. Pheasants, Partridges, and Grouse is a landmark volume in the literature of this attractive and vulnerable group of birds. * Comprehensive identification guide to over 250 species of pheasants, partridges, and grouse throughout the world * Detailed text covering identification, description, geographical variation, voice, status, habitat and behavior, distribution, movements, and measurements * 72 color plates depicting male, female, juvenile, and subspecies plumages * Information on conservation issues * Glossary, index, reference, and bibliography

Steve Madge has traveled extensively as a bird-tour guide over the past twenty years. A former member of the British Birds Rarities Committee, he is also coauthor of Wildfowl and Crows and Jays (Princeton) and the coauthor of The Handbook of Bird Identification for Europe and the Western Palearctic (Princeton). Phil McGowan earned a Ph.D. for his study of Malaysian peacock-pheasants and was lead compiler of the World Pheasant Association's action plans for pheasants, partridges, quail, francolins, snowcock, and guineafowl. He is the author of the Phasianidae texts for Handbook of the Birds of the World.

Winner of the 2002 Best Bird Families Book, Worldtwitch "This entire book must have been a labor of love for its authors... [It] lets one appreciate the great beauty of these birds... This new book satisfies my need to have close at hand a convenient world reference on one of my favorite groups of birds."--Paul A. Johnsgard, Birding