It's too nasty out to resume my quest, so only on my second post, I will diverge from twitching already.
I was down at Russell Books (www.russellbooks.com) on Fort St last week, and scored a couple of great finds. The first is a paperback called "The Big Twitch" by Sean Dooley, which is an entertaining story about an Australian Big Year. For six bucks, not bad.
The second book is the gem, a hardcover 1979 copy of Birds of South Africa. From a collectible point of view, next to useless (for reasons described below), which is what attracted me to it in the first place. Aside from being a field guide to a place I dream of going, the cover page has one of those "with love from..." inscriptions, which makes it more than just a field guide. The colour plates are nice, reminding me of the plates from the old Peterson hardcover that was the start of my own bird book collection, but beside each plate is the legend, and beside the legends, the original owner has jotted down notes on where he saw what birds, little "11/03/79 - Kruger" type notations on many of the pages. To me, this is the prize. I have a piece of someone's birding history, and can follow along on his adventures with the turn of every page. I also paid six bucks for this beauty. What a score!
Victoria has a number of great book stores, and most of them have treasures like this hidden within. Also, don't discount out of the way places - my current best find was "Birds of Washington State" by W.L. Dawson, a two volume, limited print B.C. edition, with full page colour plates by Maj. Allan Brooks, released in 1909. This was hiding at Gallowglass Books in Duncan.
Get out and check them out, just leave a couple treasures for me (and let me know if you find a stash of A.C. Bent Life Histories, I'm still missing a few)!
Anyway, back to dreaming of birding!
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