Australian Field Ornithology 2020, 37, 64–66 http://dx.doi.org/10.20938/afo37064066 Book Review Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm by Russell McGregor Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Paperback, 32 black-and-white photographs, viii + 285 pp. RRP AU$49.95 After reading Idling in journal of the RAOU. All published actively, writing nature Green Places, ‘idle’ and bird columns for the newspapers, publishing books on is not a word I would Australian birds and natural history, giving nature lectures use to describe Alec to public gatherings and on radio, and being active in the Chisholm and his life. Gould League and regional bird and nature societies. Although he may have Most,a like Chisholm, were active photographers, who took thought of idling in green and published some of the first pictures of Australian birds. places as his favourite To photograph birds with the earliest cameras took not recreation (McGregor, only skill as a photographer but vast patience and a deep p. 1), Chisholm had a understanding of bird behaviour. busy, full, and productive life as journalist, naturalist, Above all else, Chisholm was passionate about birds ornithologist, author, and the need to protect them for the benefit of future educator, conservationist, generations. He saw nature and birds as not just part of the photographer, and advisor Australian environment, but as the heart of what defined to government. His the nation and the character of its people. He carried that influence on Australian passion through his life from its beginning in Maryborough, society was considerable and not dissimilar to the modern- Victoria,b to employment at Brisbane’s Daily Mail, from day ‘shock jock’ of radio and television, although his where he promoted the passage of Queensland’s Animals influence was educational and positive, and not bombastic and Birds Act (1921) through his writings in the paper and and negative. His impact on Australian life during the first his lobbying of politicians in consort with the RAOU, the half of the 20th Century until his death in 1977 was due Gould League, and the Royal Society of Queensland. In to his skills as an author, journalist, and teacher with an Queensland, Chisholm pursued his love of ‘green places’ ability, the drive, and the words to communicate with the and birds, spending time in Lamington National Park in public of all ages in an era when newspapers were king the Border Ranges west of Brisbane and searching for and the digital age in the distant future. Those skills gave the now-extinct Paradise Parrot Psephotellus (Psephotus) Alec international, as well as a national, recognition and pulcherrimus in northern Queensland. Alec found the acclaim. Above all else, he comes across as an educated parrot in July 1922 and was one of the last to see a wild, man and keen observer of nature and people—a person living Paradise Parrot. Late in 1922, he moved to Sydney committed to nature conservation and the protection of and the Daily Telegraph. It was in Sydney that he became birds, imparting to his readers his own love of the natural friends with Keith Hindwood and became part of Sydney’s world and the importance of birds and nature to being ornithological fraternity that Allen Keast writes so fondly Australian. about in his reflections on his youth growing up on Sydney’s North Shore (Keast 1995; Keast & Recher 2018). Keast I cannot recall ever meeting Alec Chisholm (1890– considered Chisholm, along with Neville Cayley, Percy 1977); he represented an earlier generation of Australian Gilbert, Keith Hindwood, Tom Iredale, Dom Serventy, and naturalists than those I met after arriving in Australia Michael Sharland as the “cream of Sydney’s ornithological in 1967. He was of the same vintage of Australian galaxy” (Keast 1995, p. 26). Only Iredale and Serventy naturalists and amateur ornithologists as Charles Barrett were what could be called ‘professional’ naturalists and (1879–1959), Charles Belcher (1876–1970), A. (George) ornithologists in the sense that they were paid to study Campbell (1880–1954), A. (James) Campbell (1853– birds. The others earned their own keep as journalists, 1929), Keith Hindwood (1904–1971), Arnold McGill authors, and artists. It was a different world those days for (1905–1988), Michael Sharland (1899–1987), Norman ornithology and ornithologists. Wettenhall (1915–2000), Roy Wheeler (1905–1988) and Hubert Whittell (1883–1954) among many others. Barrett, In those days, the RAOU and the Gould League of Bird Belcher, and the Campbells were foundation members Lovers were important leaders and educators in the need of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) to protect Australia’s vast wealth of natural beauty and (Robin 2001), but all were active members, with most biodiversity. They influenced government and community (including Chisholm) taking turns and serving as President alike and were ably assisted by the writings and educational of the RAOU. Barrett, Belcher, Chisholm, and McGill also efforts of Alec Chisholm and his fellow ‘amateurs’. Times served as Editor of the Emu, the flagship ornithological changed. Book Review: Idling in Green Places 65 By the time that I arrived in Sydney from the United States impart human values and attributes to wild animals, but of America in 1967, the influence and recognition of the Alec they fostered my own love of nature and wildlife and led Chisholms and Keith Hindwoods had diminished. In their eventually to a career as an ecologist studying birds in place, the ornithological community became dominated Australia. by professionals employed in government at museums, CSIRO, and universities to study Australia’s biota. Most of I am almost embarrassed to admit that during my early the professionals, such as Walter Boles, Robert Carrick, years in Australia and at the Australian Museum I had little John Disney, Douglas Dow, Bill Emison, Hugh Ford, Allen regard for the contributions made and being made by Alec Keast, Jiro Kikkawa, Harry Recher, Ian Rowley, Richard Chisholm, Keith Hindwood, and other Australian naturalists Shodde and Jerry van Tets, had studied at university and of their generation. Like them I took an early interest in were educated overseas. For example, although Australian the RAOU as an ornithological society and the Emu as an by birth, Allen Keast, arguably Australia’s best-known ornithological journal, but I had a different, more academic ornithologist, obtained his doctorate studying with Ernst view of what the RAOU and the Emu should be. It pleased Mayr at Harvard University (Keast & Recher 2018). At that me when Stephen Marchant took over the editorship of the time, Australian universities did not train (at least in the Emu and put it on a more scientific footing.Stray Feathers, numbers required) the resource managers, environmental that part of the Emu devoted to brief and often anecdotal scientists and ecologists, much less ornithologists, that observations of birds, was not something I valued—my Australia needed at a time of growing environmental mistake. Today, with an additional 50+ years of maturity awareness and concern. Over time this changed and, as behind me, I better understand the value of those titbits Paul Ehrlich was fond of saying, “Australia has the world’s of observation of natural history and their value to modern best ecologists” (pers. comm.). He exaggerated, of course, ornithology. I also regret not having paid more attention but into the 21st Century Australia could be proud of its to Keith Hindwood and his encyclopaedic knowledge of ecological and environmental scientists and the efforts Australian birds, but Keith was not, in my experience, being made to protect continental biodiversity. the most approachable person. It was my opinion that Hindwood and others in Sydney’s ornithological fraternity Whatever the ‘professionals’ achieved, it was the were content in their knowledge of birds and valued the naturalists and amateur ornithologists like Alec Chisholm admiration they received from the amateur ornithologists who laid the foundation for the growth of the ecological (dare I say ‘birdwatchers’) who frequented the Australian and environmental sciences in Australia. The study of Museum and attended the meetings of the ornithology nature, Natural History, is the source of observations that section of the Royal Zoological Society (NSW) held in the lead to the asking of questions of how and why plants and Hallstrom Theatre at the Museum; I rarely attended those animals behave as they do in response to environmental meetings and lost much by not doing so. I might even have variation (Sagarin & Pauchard 2012). The foundation come to meet and know Alec Chisholm. was laid in the nature columns, public talks, and books about green places, as well as scientific papers on the Idling in Green Places is a biography of Alec Chisholm, behaviour and ecology of birds that Chisholm and his but it is more than that. It is a history of the growth of fellow amateurs published in quantity through the first half ornithology and natural history as sciences in every sense of the 20th Century. More than just being good observers of those words from the late 19th Century through the of the natural world and adept at putting their observations 1960s to Chisholm’s death in 1977. It is a valuable and into words that captivated young and old, rich and poor, as informative adjunct to Libby Robin’s The Flight of the well as those with power and influence, the Alec Chisholms Emu: A Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901– of Australia were passionate advocates of protecting the 2001 (Robin 2001). Having read Idling in Green Places, natural world. Chisholm’s articles, scientific papers, and I now better understand many of the conflicts that were books commonly had a strong conservation message.