Hugh Officer has competence and enthusiasm for birds wherever he may be, but he also writes of the general scene, deliberately avoiding becoming a ‘bird bore’. This book is a chattily descriptive blend, with the scenes dominant and the birds a complementary sample of his opportunities.

Four of eleven chapters treat Australian scenes – in Tasmania and King Island, the Diamantina country near the joining of Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales, the Tanami track from Alice Springs to Hall’s Creek, the north-west portion of Kimberley Division, the Abrolhos Islands, the Borraloola area close to the Gulf of Carpentaria; and also places here and there en route to and from those areas.

Two chapters deal with the Solomon Islands, with a brief look around the New Hebrides on the way.

The remaining five chapters cover scenes in India, Ceylon and Burma, the Burma road into southern China, Chungking, Tibet and Iceland, and the Camargue in southern France. The Asian scenes were visited during Officer’s thirty years with the Indian Army.

Seven maps compiled for the book provide support for text, but they do not cover all areas traversed. Illustrations are not provided, but that doesn’t affect the book significantly. An index is not provided; its absence is an unfortunate inconvenience for those who scan the index with much more attention than the contents page.

The book is ornithologically ‘light’, deliberately so. In the Australian scenes it includes two significant records for sighting of the Carpentarian Grasswren which had not been reported for many years. The less significant sightings were many – but the personal substance in acquiring experience and satisfaction in birdwatching is to see in the field species the observer has not seen before, or only rarely. Hugh Officer in his wide wanderings has had much success and pleasure of this kind, reflected strongly in his books.

Officer makes clear his bias for the more colorful or unusual among species that may be seen in available time, stating his lack of interest in identifying every possible species to achieve a maximum tally for each trip.

Anthropomorphic touches here and there suggest a style for general readers. And for those readers it is unfortunate the jacket features a Galilean field glass, perhaps as a picturesque symbol, when the greatly superior prism binocular took over very many years ago.