Birds of Africa South of the Sahara

This guide is probably halfway between being a field guide and an armchair where-do-I-just-have-to-visit book. Field guide features are excellent, including quality illustrations, notes on important field marks on the illustration page near the feature (eg, for turacos, the crest shape and size are placed near the crest), and maps on the facing page. The text is concise with some notes on geographic variation and subspecies if warranted. A nice feature is a thin gray line separating each species' illustration, which makes it easy to tell which species are which when multiple plumages are shown. The downsides to the field guide function are partly what I consider to be hindrances to the perfect guide (which I haven't seen yet, despite my library containing several dozen field guides from around the world). These include numbers on the illustrations instead of names, which adds a few precious seconds to the hunt for information in the field. The plates are not overly crowded (see Zimmerman et al's Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania for an irritating extreme in crowded), so there would have been room to put the names and not just numbers. The maps do not show any seasonal ranges, which is a rather serious drawback both for the field guide and armchair functioning of the book. I find the system used in the newest Roberts Bird Guide (Southern Africa) to be extremely helpful: increasing saturation of seasonal colors that shows both population density and when the bird is expected in an area. Of course, in many areas that are not heavily birded, the degree of knowledge of these points is considerably less--but that is useful information as well.The second function of the book goes along with one of the main drawbacks for most people of any comprehensive field guide: size and weight of the book. For any guide that covers such a huge and biodiverse area, with some 2129 species covered, the book will be hefty. Considering that, the book is amazingly compact. I've carted around heavier books (see Restall et al's Birds of Northern South America, an excellent book but heaaavy!), and for any day of a trip in Africa that I wasn't walking, I would definitely bring this book. The relatively compact size also means that the book can be combined with a more local guide to a visited country and still be allowed on an airplane with your luggage. I personally would not want to use this book alone as a guide, but I tend to want as many references as possible in my possession in case I might miss something.The book is heavy even with a judicial use of space in the introduction and back pages. The front inside cover uses one of the more modern 'quick reference' guides to find families and page numbers. I particularly like this feature in guides, but I wish all of them would include the common family name along with the illustration. For non-native birders, some unusual families are hard to recall even with serious studying pre-trip (or am I the only one who has this issue?). Further help in quick location of families comes from colored corner pages, which I find less useful when the colors change with each family, but in this guide they grouped several families to make that easier. Two very helpful maps are included, although unfortunately one is repeated which seems unnecessary: political boundaries and vegetation types. The index separates common and scientific names, a trend in some guides that does not seem useful to me because it takes a few seconds longer to find something. It is in the normal order of group name then species (ie 'Turaco, Great Blue) instead of the irritating modifier first order (ie, 'Great Blue Turaco'), which makes it very hard to find a species beginning with 'Common' or whose taxonomy is unsettled.But I think one of the best functions of the book is a pre-trip study, and even before arrangements are made to go to a specific country, to find out which country to visit. The larger geographic area allows one to see if Ghana fills the bill for a person's most wanted bird (see Great Blue Turaco!) or if another country must be considered. The book is exceptionally well-suited for this (although again, the lack of seasonal maps makes this a bit more challenging in terms of WHEN to visit). I am loving browsing through the book, strongly considering whether post-covid I can do both a Ghana and a Kenya trip. It is a hard choice no matter what, but just looking at the gorgeous illustrations can help whet the appetite.All in all, this is an excellent book, and recommended for armchair travelers as well as those who pour over their field guides in great detail. If you love grabbing a guide off the shelf and wishing you were making plans to visit a place with fabulous birds, this one will make you happy.

This book has taken on a monumental task by introducing the entire bird fauna of a huge region in one volume.I was sceptical before seeing it, thinking that quantity would probably take priority over quality. It did not!For a start, it is surprisingly detailed and well-organized. The editors have resisted the usual temptetion of cramming too many similar or small species on one page. Usually there are just 5-6 species on each page, sometimes 7 or just 3-4.What this means is that illustrations are big enough to show detail, plus there are often 4 or more different illustrations for the same 1 species, showing different colour morphs, juveniles, females, birds in flight, head or wing details, etc.It also means that the maps and text for each species could be placed on the page facing its picture.The text itself is still amazingly detailed for a book of this scope, giving the essential information on distribution, appearence, habitat, status and voice.Too good to be true? Well, some of the illustrations show important colour or pattern details wrongly, even contradicting description in the text - in these cases the text tends be more accurate, so have a look at that one, too!But all in all, this book is a great value introduction to the bird fauna of Africa, though perhaps unsurprisingly, I found it a bit too bulky to carry on the field.Note that while shown here as out of print, another edition of the very same book by another publisher is still readily  available here !

I have purchased 3 copies of this field guide; one for myself and the others for avid birding friends here in West Africa. This is a comprehensive work which has a size and weight that is still manageable as a field guide, but just barely. As it contains so many listings it takes a bit longer than normal to find the bird of interest. I have speeded up the process by creating a index with page numbers for local species. The illustrations are high quality and the local maps are useful. I do find myself wanting the maps to show the seasonal distributions. I would recommend this to anyone birding in Africa.

I've used Birds of Africa South of the Sahara for three years now, mainly for identifying birds seen in travel videos. I originally purchased this book because of it's comprehensive coverage and I have not been disappointed in that respect. Likewise, the range maps are easy to use and seem fairly accurate, much less spotty than those on e-Bird. In contrast, many of the paintings are off on one field mark or another. Sometimes it's just a matter of different races of the same species being different, but other times a key field make will be different between the book's plate and all of the photos on e-Bird. For my uses this isn't a big problem as I can use the book to narrow down the choice to a few species and then check details on a number of e-Bird photos. If you're in the field without Internet this issue could pose a problem. By the time you know the species well enough to recognize that a key field mark is wrong in the book, you probably know the species well enough not to need the book. I'm in no position to judge the textual information, but I certainly find it informative and easy to access. --- I'm not sure what other book I'd recommend in place of this for someone seeking a comprehensive field guide to the whole region, but I would suggest taking the field marks and hues shown in the paintings with a bit of caution.

Great book about all the birds in Africa. We bought it after seeing and reading it during our Tanzania Safari trip. Now, you will need the same book for the other "non-flying" animals.

Excelente guia sobre as aves de África, recomendo!!

This book is probably the best field guide out there. The reason why I have decided against it is that ironically it is not suitable to be carried when you are out in the field because it is massive and very heavy. This is not the book’s fault though.

A beautiful book and an indispensable companion for everyone who travels to Africa and wants to be aware of which bird one is seeing as well as of the amazing diversity one is enjoying. In addition, a warning that this irreplaceable beauty should be protected for the generations to come.

Lindo, me faz querer visitar este paraíso que é a África.

Birders love a good bird guide. This is a very good bird guide. I bought this to study prior to travelling to Zambia later this year. I will not pretend it is pocket sized. However I plan to add it to my kit bag when I fly out. It has all you need in terms of distribution maps, gorgeous illustrations, species status, seasonality/migration and voice descriptions with some species getting additional indicators of where to find commercially available recorded media so that you may hear the bird song in question. If you are planning a birding trip south of the Sahara, buy this book.