I started my marine ornithological career with penguins, specifically the African (then jackass) penguin (Spheniscus demersus) nearly five decades ago. I have worked with five species of Southern Ocean penguins, and I have been lucky to have visited the breeding sites of most other species over the years. However, more recently I have been concentrating on albatrosses and petrels. So, how well does this new book serve to bring me up to date?

The book consists of 17 individually authored chapters, each covering a species; however, the royal (Eudyptes schlegeli) and macaroni (E. chrysolophus) penguins (treated as separate species) are somewhat surprisingly combined into a single chapter, which may be explained by the lack of an Australian co-author who has studied royals on Macquarie Island. Not surprisingly the species’ accounts vary in length, reflecting the amount of available research. The very well-studied African penguin (although for all that still in a perilous state) gets 21 pages (four of them references), showing just how much research has been conducted since my hesitant beginnings in 1971. The magellanic penguin (S. magellanicus), a favourite of one of the editors who is the chapter’s senior author, is allocated over 30 pages. In contrast, the little studied erect-crested penguin (E. sclateri) gets just eight pages, with only half a page of references.

Each chapter provides a species description, discusses taxonomic status, range and distribution, summarizes population size and trends, and gives usually detailed information, including tables on morphometrics, breeding sites and sometimes diet, on ‘natural history’ (such as breeding biology, prey, predators and moult). Under the heading of Main Threats, the species texts cover such matters as human exploitation, fisheries, habitat degradation and pollution. The chapters end with recommendations for research and conservation action for each species.

I looked especially at the chapter on the northern rockhopper penguin (E. moseleyi), written by Richard Cuthbert, as I know the species well from 18 visits to Gough Island. The account covers the disaster when the bulk carrier Oliva bizarrely crashed straight into Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha Group in March 2011 spilling heavy fuel oil (and soya beans). Around 3700 oiled penguins were collected but cleaning efforts, inevitably delayed by Tristan’s isolation, sadly resulted in only a few hundred surviving to release. This has a message for Antarctic penguins even more isolated and in a much more inhospitable environment. Could anything realistically be done about thousands (or even tens or hundreds of thousands) of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis papua) if they ever became oiled on the South Sandwich Islands? I rather think not, but at least the southern continent is far away from commercial shipping routes.

The book is softbacked though sturdily bound and is well illustrated in colour; it appears well edited, necessary to achieve a comparable standard when a volume has many authors. Published in 2013, the book includes references at least up to 2012 (not bad). Disappointingly, there is only a short introduction and no summarizing chapter other than a three and a half page conclusion which concentrates on the poor and seemingly worsening conservation status of the family (15 of the 18 species recognized are considered to be globally threatened or near threatened). So the book remains essentially a compendium of individual species accounts with little cross-linkage within the family as a whole. The chapters are individually referenced but there is no overall index. Nevertheless to bring this ageing marine ornithologist up to date it serves its purpose well enough.