Figure

JEFF DAVIES Cockatiel Nymphicus hollandicus and Superb Parrot Polytelis swainsonii. Watercolour on acrylic background, 65.0 × 48.3 cm; 1996. This was painted for volume 4 of Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (1999). The weighty ‘handbook’ is not a guide to be taken into the field but was, at the time, the most detailed Australian guide to identification. Carefully researched, perched birds show fine details of form and plumage, races and variants, sex and age differences, and birds in flight illustrate the silhouette and pattern of the underside. Davies was the primary illustrator for the first four volumes, a task that occupied him for much of a decade.