The ornithology of South East Asia remains relatively unknown.  In the systematic sense, it is well documented but precious little is known of bird behaviour, feeding habits, breeding cycles, habitat requirements and so on.

When working in India, before coming to Sarawak in 1984, I was just one among several hundred full-time and amateur ornithologists working all over that huge country.  In Sarawak, I was the only full-time ornithologist.  At that time, all that was known of Borneo's birds was summarised in The Birds of Borneo (Smythies 1960), the only book on the birds of Borneo with illustrations, as well as notes on habitat and behaviour.

Some research had been done shortly after the Second World War.  Apart from a few checklists prepared for a National Park or two, little or no research had been done on the birds of Borneo since 1970.  Though large numbers of birds were trapped and ringed between 1963 and 1970, under the U. S. Army Migratory Animals Pathological Survey project, none of the records were locally available.

I soon realised that we knew absolutely nothing about many of our birds.  We had no biometrics on our birds, no information on age/sex plumage variations, little or nothing on their behaviour, on what they ate, or their breeding habits and requirements.

Nor was the situation any better in West Malaysia or Singapore.  Except for the four-volume The Birds of the Malay Peninsula by Robinson & Chasen, published 1928 to 1939, by then a rare and expensive collector's item, there was only one book worth buying.  This little gem of a book, more of a booklet, actually, was An introduction to Malayan birds (Madoc 1956) published out of Kuala Lumpur by the Malayan Nature Society.

Its first edition was actually written while he was a prisoner-of-war at Changi during World War Two, using a typewriter, on paper stolen from his Japanese captors!  In the Preface to his 1956 edition, Guy Madoc wrote, "I hope that some day it will be superseded by a Nature Society publication in which the pooled knowledge of all Malaya's ornithologists will be presented comprehensively with numerous coloured illustrations."

It was to be forlorn hope.  Very little ornithological research has been done over the past thirty years or more, a trend that continues to be the order of the day.  Several short-term surveys of remote areas have merely catalogued the birds found there.

As a result, The Birds of Borneo (Smythies 1999), now in its fourth edition, still has very little information about many birds, especially the deep jungle species.  We lack plumage descriptions for some birds, know little of the nesting habits or breeding biology for many more, and lack data on age/sex plumage variations, distribution, population levels and habitat requirements for even our common birds.

In the Foreword to Bird of South Vietnam (Wildash 1968), Jean Delacour wrote, "Much however remains to be learnt on the general habits, the life, migration, distribution, relative abundance, status, and other biological facts pertaining to these birds. This can only be done by local workers and residents."

It has taken thirty years for this to get close to becoming a reality!  Following the birth pangs of eco-tourism, promoted over the last two decades, bird watching became a major tourism activity.  To facilitate and exploit this new market, the era of illustrated field guides arrived.  A plethora of such guides emerged, hard on the heels of one another, not so much due to an accumulation of fresh data, more by re-packaging the existing data, often without citing the source material.

Delacour's suggestion was helped along by two parallel developments.  Birdwatchers, encouraged to publish their short notes in the Malaysian and Singapore Society Nature journals, added useful nuggets of sorely needed information.  The value of these small individual contributions was proven when much of it was used in the two-volume The Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula (Wells 1999 & 2007).

However, the ground shifted when both these Nature journals decided to sideline contributions from amateur birdwatchers in favour of those by scientists.  Many birdwatchers left, to work on their own, some of them taking to bird photography, which led to the second development.

Just as computers and word processors helped churn out a multiplicity of field guides, the arrival of affordable digital cameras and digiscopes encouraged more photographers and birdwatchers to move into this field.  Many, bored with being mere photographic "twitchers", started to learn more about the birds and began to record behavioural traits never seen before.

This set the stage for the formation of the Bird Ecology Study Group (BESG), which gave them an outlet for their photographs and observations.  And their output has been nothing short of phenomenal.

The last comprehensive book on the birds of this area is now three years old, and does not include any of this newly gathered information, and is not likely to be updated for some considerable time.  When the first volume of The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula (Wells 1999) was published, I was horrified at its price tag!  Almost as much as a low-income group chap in Malaysia might earn in one month, as much as some Indonesians live on in a whole year!

If we are to thoroughly document the birds of Singapore, or the whole region for that matter, we need to encourage large numbers of young committed ornithologists and birdwatchers to collect data.  Yet another new and expensive book which, essentially, would be nothing more than just another update, with the promise of more expensive updates to come, is very definitely not the right way to go about it!

I feel that an online version, freely available to everyone, would be the best way to encourage young people to become part of an on-going project by contributing their individual findings.  This way, as we regularly upload new information as it becomes available, the book will continue to grow, gradually get bigger, better and more comprehensive, will always be up-to-date, and really become a living book!

If you are a bird lover and wish to be part in this exciting new venture, find out how you can participate.