This book is truly the result of a team effort, and is an exemplary achievement of many members of Canberra Ornithologists Group over the years. There is quite a risk, in acknowledging the contributions of so many people over almost 20 years, that some contributions might inadvertently have been overlooked. I hope this has not occurred, but if it has, it is certainly not any reflection on the value of the contribution. In making these acknowledgements I will work from the present achievement in producing this volume back to the genesis of the Garden Bird Survey Project back in the early eighties.

Philip Veerman has been a major contributor, both to the creation of this volume, Birds of Canberra Gardens, and to the success of the Garden Bird Survey itself. In the production of this volume, Philip has most successfully carried out the difficult and complex operation of extracting the relevant information from the Garden Birds data base and turning it into useful statistical information and explanatory text.

Kathy Walter designed the book and created the photocomposition for the covers. Leo Clarke did the layout work.

The text was put together by an editorial/writing group consisting of Paul Fennell, Nicki Taws, Robin Smith, Jenny Bounds, Robin Brown, Anthony Overs, Harvey Perkins, Sue Mathews, David McDonald, Rosemary Blemings, Jack Holland, and Doug Laing. Robin Smith and Harvey Perkins undertook the overall editing of the manuscript with assistance from Philip Veerman and Chris Davey.

Graeme Stephinson organised the COG Garden Bird Photo Competition, which produced so many magnificent images for the book, and found suitable images to fill the gaps. He also provided many great images from his own collection. Robin Brown assisted him in the task of selecting images for the book. While the acknowledgements for the photographs are listed separately, special mention should also be made of the contribution of Helen Fallows, Graham Chapman, and Frank Atkinson who gave great support to the project.

Greg Palethorpe, Planning and Land Management ACT Department of Urban Services, prepared the maps showing the distribution of sites. Ian Baird, Canberra Parks and Places, ACT Department of Urban Services provided advice, assistance and support in bringing the whole project together.

The history of the Garden Bird Survey is briefly outlined in a later section. It is important that three groups of people are acknowledged for their contribution to the survey.

The first group consists of those who created the survey or who have kept is going since July 1981. These people are Neil Hermes, McComas Taylor, Graham Elliott, Ian Baird and Philip Veerman. Without their efforts there would have been no survey project. The second group consists of all the COG members and others who kept a week-by-week record of the birds they observed in their site, sometimes over a period of many years. A select few have submitted a chart for every year of the survey. Without this effort, there would be no survey data.

The third group consists of the people who dedicated so much time to designing and maintaining the Garden Bird Survey Database, and those who assisted by entering the data into the database. Design, maintenance and data entry are exacting and time-consuming tasks. This group includes more recently Philip Veerman, Graham Deaker, and Andrew Newbery.

The publication of this book was made possible by a generous grant from Canberra Urban Parks and Places. COG gratefully acknowledges this support.

Paul Fennell