Ballara: A Natural History (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781763788862)

The authors (Michael and Sarah) live on a property (called Ballara) in south-east Australia, that includes a 10ha bird study site, which is the subject of the book. The property was purchased by Sarah's father Stephen in 1973 (Chapter 1). Stephen did a 10-year study of the bird community on the 10ha site between 1975 and 1984, and left the property in 1998 (Chapter 5). Upon Michael's retirement in 2004, he and Sarah moved to the property and continued the study for another nine years (Chapter 6).

The book uses as its focus, both Stephen and the 10ha plot of land, which are threads that provides continuity throughout the book. As the story proceeds, it addresses in six chapters, five sub-stories which are linked to the history of the plot; Stephen (an eminent Australian ornithologist, Chapter 1), the geology, vegetation, soils and birds of the 10ha site (Chapter 2), aboriginal (Chapter 3) and white settler (Chapter 4) impacts on the site, and the scientific studies on the site (Chapters 5 and 6)). The book is interesting from an Australian historical perspective, but also offers an insight into the complex and onerous nature of ecological studies. There are many books and TV series on the results of scientific studies, but very little on how these studies are done. The book also presents the results of these studies, written for the lay person, and discusses these results in the context of today's major issues such as climate change, extinctions and habitat destruction.