A new annotated checklist to the third largest island in the world. Borneo boasts a wealth of biodiversity including over 630 species of bird, 11% of which are endemic. The plates illustrate some of the extraordinary landscapes from around the island.
Each species account looks at distribution in the different countries and regions of Borneo (including Brunei, Sarawak, Sabah, Kalimantan) and describes the habitat and status.
Clive Mann was born in Essex in 1942 and attended Colchester Royal Grammar School. From 1961 to 1964 he studied at University College, London resulting in the award ofa B.Sc. in Zoology and Anthropology, followed by a move to Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda where he gained a Dip.Ed. From 1965 to 1975 he taught in schools in Uganda and Kenya. Much ornithological fieldwork, which included ringing projects, resulted in many papers on population dynamics, breeding and moult cycles, zoogeography and migration. He was a member of the team of authors that produced the first definitive checklist of the birds of East Africa. When living in the UK from 1976 to 1981, an M.Sc. with a thesis based on passerine taxonomy was completed, and a Ph.D. continued this work. For four years he served on the committee of the British Ornithologists' Club (BOC). From 1981 to 1991 he taught in the Science College, Brunei on the island of Borneo. Fieldwork, including ringing, mostly in lowland dipterocarp forest, resulted in the publication of various papers and notes on ornithological topics. He was resident ornithologist on the Royal Geographical Society's Belalong Expedition in 1991, which resulted in contributions to various publications. During this period, work began on this checklist, and was continued after his return to the UK. Another major work carried out whilst back in the UK was on sunbirds and flowerpeckers, resulting in Sunbirds: A Guide to the Sunbirds, Flowerpeckers, Spiderhunters and Sugarbirds of the World written with R.A. Cheke and published in 2001. With the same co-author he has written the family accounts for the Nectariniidae and Dicaeidae, which will appear in volume 13 of The Handbook of the Birds of the World. Other ongoing projects include accounts of the Old World members of the Cuculidae for a monograph on the cuckoos of the world, and further studies on anatomy and taxonomy of sunbirds and flowerpeckers. During the 1990s and 2000s he served a further five years as a trustee of the BOC, four of those years as Chairman, and also serves as a trustee of the Trust for Oriental Ornithology.
Another worthy addition to an increasingly valuable series. - Geoffrey W.H. Davidson, Ibis - The Journal of the British Ornithologists' Union, July 2009