Well it's not so much a review but a report of a review in the Spectrum magazine from last weekend's, Spectrum magazine from the Sydney Morning Herald (Feb 18-19). I was charmed buy the description of Carrie Tiffany's novel "Mateship With Birds". The title is a direct reference to Alec Chisholm's book of the same title published in 1922. This is of course a fictional book concerning human relationships so don't expect a "bird book" in the sense of Russell Kinston's
bedside companion. For those that don't know
Alec Chisholm was once one of Australia's best known journalists and ornithologist. From what Andrew Riemer (SMH Chief Book reviewer) has said, it appears Tiffany has faithfully recreated Chisolm's ornithological world of the 1950's in his
review. I for one will be keeping my eyes open for this book. If someone has any recollections of Chisolm I for one would love to hear them as although he died in 1977 I was only a kid then and only vaguely aware of his influence. There were quite a few "Naturalists" as we called them then such as
Vincent Serventy,
Eric Worrell and
Harry Buttler each of whom gave me such a strong love of Australian wildlife. To have recreated this near-recent world is something that appeals to me as I contemplate my present urban lifestyle and contrast it to how I grew up.
![Image](http://images.smh.com.au/2012/02/15/3040454/MJS-n-mateship1_20120215145647484100-200x0.jpg)
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![Image](http://images.smh.com.au/2012/02/15/3040457/MJS-n-mateship2_20120215145716711650-200x0.jpg)