9 minute read
Bindon's Lore
A GUIDING HAND
There are more than 28,000 kinds of orchids throughout the world according to an intermittently reliable online encyclopaedia. I don’t know how many of these can be found in Australia, but it is certainly in the hundreds if not the thousands. A talented West Australian botanical artist illustrated a book with more than 200 paintings of orchids known for that state alone, and there are many hundreds more in other parts of Australia. Another acquaintance recently returned from a 4WD trip to the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia and complained that his trip was completely spoiled because he was unable to locate a field guide to the wildflowers of the region and particularly its orchid flora. Needless to say he is a keen photographer of wildflowers and does produce some rather dramatic closeup pictures of wildflowers and particularly orchids. He said that it wasn’t the lack of subjects that he was complaining about, but the lack of a good manual to identify what he was seeing – because the flowers were out in masses. Whether you are just interested in a common name that you can share with friends or want the full story with the scientific name (often called a binomial, because it consists of two parts) a good up-to-date field guide is indispensable. However, you should be warned that with all things natural being described by scientists, you are likely to find that your printed field guide to the flora goes outof-date quickly as scientists discover some factor, invisible to the naked eye, which means that a plant with a particular name suddenly finds itself with a brand-new name when its formerly unknown feature is revealed to the world. I can imagine that the orchids, with so many in the family as it were, often wake up one morning to discover that their name has been changed to suit the new discovery. This is not always the case with the socalled ‘common names’ of things. But there is another problem to contend with when using common names alone. Common names in one area may not be the same as the name used elsewhere - and this can be true for places that are relatively close. Names can be much more localised and even more problematical, a particular common name in one area may apply to a completely different species just a few dozen kilometres away. Yes, it is a problem, but I would still maintain that keeping a reasonably up-to-date field guide in the glovebox is a worthwhile exercise.
BINDON'S LORE
with BINDON THE BUSHIE
The first kind of field guide to be in common use was an annotated map or perhaps one with illustrations referring to different features shown on it. I can think of some in this century relating to the Canning Stock Route, the Eyre Highway and plenty from interstate and overseas. Using these always enhanced the trip for me as I wanted to know about the landscape and its history. I’m sure many readers felt the same. These soon flowered into full-blown illustrated publications with which you must all be familiar. A parallel kind of guide is the one produced for tourists intent on travel in foreign and unfamiliar countries; one famous series being the product of an industrious Australian couple. And landscape and history are not the only subjects treated in field guides; I have some that depict the medicinal plants of the Western United States prairies, the French Alps and others on almost every conceivable topic you could nominate. It’s not that I am a field guide collector, but when I have had the opportunity to travel, I wanted to know the same things about the places I was visiting as I did about Australia. One advantage that today’s traveller has is the availability of electronic field guides. Not only will half a dozen easily fit on your reading screen, but you can forget the worry of having to buy new paper editions as an old guide is outdated or superseded. This kind of semi-permanent guide may be a problem when you are out in the weeds in a remote region with no internet connection if you don’t download the whole guide to start with, but most readers will be far more comfortable with such a publication than I am, and will surely overcome any such difficulties. The advantage of an electronic bird guide is that it contains a recording of each type of bird call, and you can often play these back to help with identification. And judicious playing of the calls in the scrub can lure an unsuspecting bird within clear viewing distance. However, this facility should be used with caution and infrequently so as to cause minimum distress to the birds. Things are not so difficult regarding other species of living things. For example, there are probably half a dozen good field guides to the birds of Australia. But a glance through these will reveal that the common-name syndrome applies here just as it does in the plant world. A particularly spectacular parrot common to the central tablelands of New South Wales is locally called the Boorowa Parrot, because it is particularly fond of nesting in that area.
Only 40 kilometres away it is known as the Green Leek and still in the general region it is called Barraband’s Parrot or Barraband’s Parakeet. Generally, it is called the Superb Parrot in field guides where its scientific name is currently given as Polytelis swainsonii. See the problem? If you were keeping a list of the birds spotted on a trip and encountered the Superb Parrot, you could add half a dozen bird common names to the list with just one sighting! Now it is a difficult thing to spot birds on the wing and identify them correctly as I can explain from personal experience. In a former life while working at a state museum I went on a field trip with another member of the museum staff who was involved with writing a handbook to the birds of Western Australia. The handbook was going to be very specific about where birds were seen and all through the trip one of the passengers was designated as the recorder of birds. It was their job to record the species of bird seen as we travelled along the chosen route and record the distance from a town or other identifiable landmark at which the bird was seen. On return to the office, the locations of all the sightings were plotted on a large map intended for publication. Over a few years the exact localities where a particular bird species was seen produced a very accurate map of the range of the species. This was all fine for the common easily recognised species, but for things which seemed a little less common it often entailed a lengthy delay while a correct identification could be made. It all proved worth-while, but I planned to be a casual observer myself and didn’t panic if I was confronted by a bird that I didn’t recognise. Casual I may have been, but I was always delighted to spot something that was considered a little uncommon or even rare. Spotting birds in their environments certainly enhanced a lot of trips that I have made into the scrub over the years – and the same goes for discovering interesting and even rare plants. I can only claim the discovery of one new species of animal and that was of a land-snail that lived in leaf litter around the base of a huge granite tor – but that is a story for another day. What can be of major assistance to the exploring amateur scientist of today, is that field guides are produced that are far more specific to particular regions than they were previously. It is possible to find them for areas that are favourites for visitors like for example ‘Shoreline Birds of New South Wales’ or ‘Shorebirds and Seabirds of the Pilbara Coast and Islands,’ and there are plenty more titles like these for most parts of Australia. I’ve always found that giving them a cheap pair of binoculars each and a local bird guide will keep the kids busy once you have established camp and are looking forward to sitting down in a comfortable camp chair and enjoying a favourite tipple. When they get tired of birdwatching, it’s probably time to get them on to wood collection for the evening barbeque – if that is allowed. Not only do field guides exist for birds, but they can also be found for plenty of other animals and even reptiles and frogs. I’m not so keen on ‘Crocodiles of the World’ having seen what their array of teeth is capable of and nor am I particularly keen on the snake guides that say something like, “the only way to be certain about whether your specimen is a poisonous variety is to count the row of scales ….” That is fine once the specimen is deceased but for the most part, I have always tried to discourage the presence of reptilian fauna near my camps by careful site selection and clearing of any hiding places. Although I must say that in 20 years of living in a swag on the ground, I only had two snake frights, and in both cases, it was more afraid of me than I was of it. Mostly this was because it shot through before my fears had risen to screaming point!
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