John Gilbert: The first Australian ethnoornithologist

John Gilbert collected bird, mammal and plant specimens in Australia for the eminent British ornithologist John Gould between 1838 and the time of his untimely death in 1845.

One as yet unappreciated aspect of Gilbert's time in Australia is his work with Aboriginal people around the small colonial settlements of Swan River and King George's Sound in Western Australia, at various locations in New South Wales and South Australia and around the small military outpost of Port Essington in the Northern Territory.

Gilbert recorded the local Aboriginal names and information about many bird species. Much of that information was later published in Gould's seven volume "The Birds of Australia", which remains to this day the most comprehensive record of Australia-wide Aboriginal bird knowledge.

I will examine Gilbert's two volume "Ornithological Notes", the unpublished personal record of his work in Australia, and other published and unpublished sources recording Gilbert's work and his influence on Australian ornithology and the potential for further research on Gilbert's contribution as the first Australian ethnoornithologist.