The definitive photographic guide to the amazing avifauna of South Africa.

South Africa – from the vast savanna of Kruger to the unparalleled richness of the Cape – is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, featuring the highest number of endemics of any African country, as well as rich seabird assemblage and vast numbers of more widespread yet no less spectacular African birds.

The perfect companion for any wildlife-friendly visitor, Birds of South Africa provides photographic coverage of more than 340 species that regularly occur in the region. Concise text for each species includes information on identification, songs and calls, behaviour, distribution and habitat, with each photo having been carefully selected to guide identification. A guide to the best birdwatching sites in South Africa is also included.

Portable yet authoritative, this is the perfect guide for travellers and birdwatchers visiting this spectacular and bird-rich destination.

VELD Voëls van Suider-Afrika: Die volledige fotogids bring die heel nuutste foto’s, navorsing en verspreidingsdata oor alle voëlspesies wat tot op hede in Suider-Afrika aangeteken is, byeen.

Hierdie omvattende veldgids bevat nagenoeg 2 000 pragtige kleurfoto’s, asook:

• die nuutste inligting oor die 991 voëlspesies in Suider-Afrika
• bondige inskrywings wat fokus op identifikasie, moontlike verwarring, gedrag en habitat, asook verskille in geslag, ouderdom, kleurvariasies en subspesies
• opsommende inligting oor elke voëlspesie se grootte, kos, status en sosialiteit
• bygewerkte, kleurgekodeerde verspreidingskaarte wat elke voël se status en digtheid aandui
• ’n volledige en verkorte register
• ’n toepassing (“app”) met voëlroepe en addisionele foto’s van kleurvariasies.

Of jy buite in die veld of op die rusbank in jou huis is, is hierdie gids ’n onontbeerlike metgesel.

In this book, Adrian Koopman describes the complex relationship between birds, the Zulu language and Zulu culture. A number of chapters look at the underlying meaning of bird names, and here we will find that the Zulu name of the Goliath Heron means ‘what gives birth to baby crocodiles’, the dikkop (umbangaqhwa) means ‘what causes frost’, and the African Hoopoe is a party-goer who wears a colourful blanket.

The book goes further than just Zulu names, exploring the underlying meanings of bird names from other South African languages and languages from Central and East Africa. Here we find birds with names that translate as ‘cool-porridge’, ‘kiss-banana-flower’ and ‘waiter-at-the-end-of-the furrow’.

A focus on Zulu traditional oral literature details the roles birds have played in Zulu praise poetry (including the praise poems of certain birds themselves) and in proverbs, riddles and children’s games. Also considered is traditional bird lore, examining the role played by various species as omens and portents, as indicators of bad luck and evil, as forecasters of rain and storm, and as harbingers of the seasons. Here we see that the Bateleur Eagle (ingqungqulu) is linked to war, the Southern Ground Hornbill (insingizi) to thunder and heavy rain, the Red-chested Cuckoo (uphezukokhono) to the start of the ploughing season, and the Jacobin Cuckoo (inkanku) to the start of summer.

Zulu Bird Names and Bird Lore discusses the Zulu Bird Name Project, a series of Zulu bird name workshops held between 2013 and 2017 with Zulu-speaking bird guides designed to confirm (or otherwise) all previously recorded Zulu names for birds, while at the same time devising new names for those without previously recorded names. The result has been a list of species-specific names for all birds in the Zulu-speaking region. Finally, the book turns to the role such new bird names can play in conservation education and in avi-tourism.

VELD Birds of Southern Africa: The complete photographic guide incorporates the latest photographs of, and research and atlas information on, all species of birds recorded in southern Africa to date.

This comprehensive field guide contains almost 2 000 beautiful colour photographs, as well as:

• the latest information on all 991 bird species in southern Africa
• concise entries focusing on identification, behaviour, possible confusion and habitat, along with differences in sex, age, colour morphs and subspecies
• at-a-glance information on each species’ size, food, status and sociality
• brand-new, colour-coded distribution maps reflecting each bird’s status and abundance
• full-length and quick indexes
• an app providing bird calls and additional photographs of plumage variations.

An essential companion, whether you’re out in the field or on the couch at home.

ow in its fifth edition, Sasol Birds of Southern Africa has been brought fully up to date by its expert author panel, with additional contributions from two new birding experts. Greatly enhanced, this comprehensive, best-selling guide is sure to maintain its place as one of Africa’s most trusted field guides.

Key features of the 5th revised edition:

• More than 800 new illustrations
• Scan and play bird calls using free downloadable app
• Fully revised text (with latest species records), maps and plate annotations
• Fresh input from new contributing authors
• Comprehensive coverage of the region’s birds

This larger edition is based on the updated and expanded fifth edition of Sasol Birds of Southern Africa, which has been brought fully up to date by its expert author panel, with additional contributions from two new birding experts.

Greatly enhanced, this comprehensive, best-selling guide is sure to maintain its place as one of Africa’s most trusted field guides.

Key features of the 5th revised edition:

• More than 800 new illustrations
• Scan and play bird calls using free downloadable app
• Fully revised text (with latest species records), maps and plate annotations
• Fresh input from new contributing authors
• The larger format allows for better appreciation and easier use of the plates.

Now in its fifth edition, Sasol Birds of Southern Africa has been brought fully up to date by its expert author panel, with additional contributions from two new birding experts. Greatly enhanced, this comprehensive, best-selling guide is sure to maintain its place as one of Africa’s most trusted field guides.

Key features of the 5th revised edition:

• More than 800 new illustrations
• Scan and play bird calls using free downloadable app
• Fully revised text (with latest species records), maps and plate annotations
• Fresh input from new contributing authors
• Comprehensive coverage of the region’s birds

Die vyfde uitgawe van Sasol Voëls van Suider-Afrika is tans volledig bygewerk deur die deskundige skrywerspaneel, met bykomende bydraes van twee nuwe voëldeskundiges. Hierdie omvattende topverkopergids is grootliks verbeter en sal beslis sy plek behou as een van die mees betroubare veldgidse in Afrika.

Belangrike kenmerke van die nuwe uitgawe:

• Meer as 800 nuwe illustrasies
• Skandeer en speel voëlroepe deur die gratis aflaaibare toep te gebruik
• Omvattende hersiening (met mees onlangse spesierekords), verspreidingskaarte en plaatbyskrifte
• Nuwe toevoegings van bydraende skrywers
• Omvattende dekking van die streek se voëls

Die vyfde uitgawe van Sasol Voëls van Suider-Afrika is tans volledig bygewerk deur die deskundige skrywerspaneel, met bykomende bydraes van twee nuwe voëldeskundiges. Hierdie omvattende topverkopergids is grootliks verbeter en sal beslis sy plek behou as een van die mees betroubare veldgidse in Afrika.

Belangrike kenmerke van die nuwe uitgawe:

• Meer as 800 nuwe illustrasies
• Skandeer en speel voëlroepe deur die gratis aflaaibare toep te gebruik
• Omvattende hersiening (met mees onlangse spesierekords), verspreidingskaarte en plaatbyskrifte
• Nuwe toevoegings van bydraende skrywers
• Omvattende dekking van die streek se voëls

This book should be of value to anyone interested in bird evolution and taxonomy, biogeography, distributional history, dispersal and migration patterns. It provides an up-to-date synthesis of current knowledge on species formation, and the factors influencing current distribution patterns. It draws heavily on new information on Earth history, including past glacial and other climatic changes, on new developments in molecular biology and palaeontology, and on recent studies of bird distribution and migration patterns, to produce a coherent account of the factors that have influenced bird species diversity and distribution patterns worldwide.
Received the Best Bird Book of the Year award for 2004 from British Birds magazine.
* Winner of the British Birds/British Trust for Ornithology, Bird Book of the Year 2004
* The first book to deal comprehensively with bird speciation and biogeography
* Up-to-date synthesis of new information
* Clearly written
* No previous book covers the same ground
* Many maps and diagrams
* Makes difficult and widely scattered information accessible and easily understood
* A sound base for future research
* Takes full account of recent developments in molecular biology

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, a radical investigation into the bird way of being, and the recent scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds -- how they live and how they think. "There is the mammal way and there is the bird way." But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries -- What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They are also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own: deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, infanticide, but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play. Some of these extraordinary behaviors are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of, well, birdness: a mother bird that kills her own infant sons, and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds as if they were her own; a bird that collaborates in an extraordinary way with one species-ours-but parasitizes another in gruesome fashion; birds that give gifts and birds that steal; birds that dance or drum, that paint their creations or paint themselves; birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders and birds that summon playmates with a special call-and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, from the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska's Kachemak Bay, Jennifer Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect, in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behavior, birds vary. It is what we love about them. As E.O Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.

The Roberts Bird Guide (2nd Edition) has gone to great trouble to concentrate on, and illustrate, difficult-to-identify species and family groups such as raptors, warblers, cisticolas and waders. Special attention has been given to make sure there is far greater coverage of male-female differences and there are also many more juvenile illustrations. Unlike all previously published southern African bird guides, this new edition will be scattered with informative photographs that are incorporated in the text pages and each plate illustration is augmented with an introduction. Apart from the approximately 240 plate spreads, the guide also has 12 photographic and illustrated double spreads that show head enlargements and other details. Plates are annotated far more definitively than other guides – highlighting key identification features, especially for difficult-to-identify species.

RSPB ID Spotlight Birds of Farmland and Open Countryside is a reliable fold-out chart that presents illustrations of 57 of the UK's most familiar birds of farmland and open countryside by renowned artist Stephen Message. - Species are grouped by family and helpfully labelled to assist with identification - Artworks are shown side-by-side for quick comparison and easy reference at home or in the field, or the chart can be fixed to the wall as a beautiful poster - The reverse of the chart provides information on the habitats, behaviour, life cycles and diets of our birds commonly found on farmland and in open countryside, as well as the conservation issues they are facing and how the RSPB is working to support them The ID Spotlight charts help wildlife enthusiasts identify and learn more about our most common species using accurate colour illustrations and informative, accessible text.