One page map from the Cunene/Zambezi to Cape Agulhas - perfect for trip planning ( )

This field guide to the birds of Southern Africa incorporates many features to allow the reader to quickly and easily identify birds and find information about them. Each species account provides the bird's common name in English and Afrikaans, its scientific name, its Roberts number and its length. To help identify species, information is provided on plumage of the male, female and immature bird, typical behaviour, voice, habitat and nests and food. To make the information more accessible, entries are colour coded, reduced bird images make finding bird groups easier and a list of bird families in alphabetical order with their page references appears inside the front cover for quick reference. Recent discoveries and reclassifications are included and the text and maps have been updated.

The Sasol environmental series is very good – and Birds of Southern Africa is no exception. Sturdy, well-bound, protected from the wet by a thick laminated cover, this handy A5 is an ideal field guide, small enough to fit in a bag or capacious pocket, but respectably comprehensive.



Illustrated by Peter Hayman and Norman Arlott, it calls itself ‘the region's most comprehensively illustrated guide,’ and there are indeed thousands of detailed drawings of birds – although so miniature only sharp young eyes will appreciate them.



Perfect for the cognoscenti, especially if armed with a magnifying glass, this is not a book for beginners: amateur twitchers trying to identify a brown bird with a yellow bill and a long tail will battle to find a name for the checklist.



The index is unsatisfactory: the Natal Spur fowl is still classified as the Natal Francolin. If the common name index collocated the names under the term Natal it would help, but with they use S and F instead, and there is no cross-reference.



But these are quibbles; serious twitchers, including many game rangers, swear by the Sasol series so, for birders in the know, this is the book to buy. ( )