[Forwarded message from John Dunning. Reply to jdunning (AT) purdue.edu.
thanks, Colin Dear Sirs, I am an avian ecologist who has been working on a long-term project involving body masses of birds. For many years, I have compiled adult body masses of birds of the world as a resource to use in comparative studies. The database was first published in 1992 as the CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses. Recently (2007) I published a second edition with data for over 8600 species. I am still looking to fill gaps in the database, with new data being posted on my department webpage. One of the regions for which I have relatively poor coverage is Indonesia and the islands of the Pacific in general. I just don't have good access to the literature from this region, and there seem to be relatively few papers with body weights. I was wondering if you knew of a source of morphological information on the birds in the region in which you study? Likely sources would be either banding projects or museums that have been doing recent collections (older specimens rarely have weights). I understand that many of the species that are on my list are going to be rare or restricted endemics. But I thought that your research, since it is conservation based, might be a good entry into potential sources for information. I don't have access to Forktail, which seems to have a number of your papers. If you published weights in any of your papers, I would be very grateful for the citations and then I will have our Interlibrary Loan people track them down. All sources, published and unpublished, are fully cited in the compilation. Thanks for any help that you might be able to suggest, John Dunning Purdue University jdunning (AT) purdue.edu
