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An Australian Bird Book by J. A. Leach, published in 1911, was the first field guide to Australia's avifauna. Unlike today's field guides, it was not tightly focussed on identification, instead devoting more than half its words to an expansive dissertation on the natural history of birds. This article scrutinises and contextualises Leach's Bird Book to illuminate some of the interconnections between science, birdwatching, recreation and conservation in early twentieth-century Australia. It shows how Leach's heavy weighting on natural history was integral to his promotion of birdwatching as an edifying recreation that would lead people not merely to be able to name the birds they saw but also, more importantly, to understand, cherish and protect them. In 1911, J. A. Leach published the first field guide to Australia's avifauna in response to demand for a means to identify birds in the wild without shooting them first. Partly a digest of popular science, partly a conservationist polemic, and partly a nationalist homily, the book heralded a change in the relationship between people and birds. Thanks to the Australian Bird Book (and subsequent guides), birdwatching became a popular Australian pastime. With Leach in hand, birdwatchers not only learned how to identify birds, but also how to care deeply about their long-term survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]