The Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB) is one of the most exciting and significant projects in Australian ornithology today. Providing an up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate synthesis of our knowledge of all the birds that occur in the region, HANZAB continues a long tradition of authoritative and exciting ornithological publications, that began with Gould's Handbook of the Birds of Australia (1865) and was continued by Mathews, Buller and Oliver. It will have an enormous impact on the direction of future research and the conservation of Australasian and Antarctic birds, as much by showing what we don't know as by summarizing what we do. Complementing the 196 species detailed in the highly acclaimed first volume, Volume Two deals with 119 of the 900 birds recorded in Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica, the Antarctic and subantarctic islands, the external territories of Cocos-Keeling, Christmas, Lord Howe, Norfolk, Kermadec, and Chatham Islands, and the islands and reefs of the Coral Sea. The information is presented in sections: Field Identification, Habitat, Distribution and Population, Movements, Food, Social Organization, Social Behaviour, Voice, Breeding, and Plumages and related matters, and each account concludes with a full list of references. The accounts also include black-and-white illustrations of behavioural postures and plumage features, maps showing breeding and non-breeding distribution, sonagrams of calls and songs, diagrams of timing of breeding and moulting, and 70 colour plates, specially painted for HANZAB by Jeff Davies.