The aim of this book is to make Australian herons, egrets and bitterns better understood and more appreciated by bird watchers, students and indeed anyone who has a particular admiration for these striking members of our avian fauna and a concern for their long-term survival. Unless otherwise indicated, in what follows ‘heron’ will collectively refer to all three of these members of the family Ardeidae. This book is certainly overdue. In fact, it is more than 30 years since, at the first campout of the Queensland Ornithological Society (now Birds Queensland), Dr Doug Dow alerted me to the need for monographs on Australian bird families. Since then some.
