This is the final volume in the "Birds of Africa" series - looking at the rich avifauna of the world's second largest continent. Volume VII treats the remainder of the passerine families of Africa and various offshore islands, covering the sparrows, weavers, whydahs, waxbills, finches and buntings. Like its predecessors, this book boasts an exhaustively researched and referenced text, distilling all available data on the identification, ecology, distribution, behaviour and status of the species covered. Martin Woodcock's colour identification plates are complemented by a wealth of line drawings by Ian Willis which illustrate details of Africa's birdlife such as weaver nest structure and Ploceidae display postures.

This is the sixth volume in the Birds of Africa series, covering the rich avifauna of the world's second largest continent. Universally recognised as by far the most authoritative work ever published on the subject, The Birds of Africa is a superb multi-contributor reference work, with encyclopaedic species texts, stunning paintings of all species and numerous subspecies, hundreds of informative line drawings, detailed range maps, and extensive bibliographies. Each volume contains an Introduction that brings the reader up to date with the latest developments in African ornithology, including the evolution and biogeography of African birds. Diagnoses of the families and genera, often with superspecies maps, are followed by the comprehensive species accounts themselves. These include descriptions of range and status, field characters, voice, general habits, food, and breeding habits. Full bibliographies, acoustic references, and indexes complete this scholarly work of reference. This sixth volume in the series deals comprehensively with picathartes, babblers, long-tailed tits, tits, penduline tits, nuthatches, creepers, sunbirds, white-eyes, sugarbirds, true shrikes, bush-shrikes, bulbuls, helmet-shrikes, orioles, drongos, crows, starlings and oxpeckers. The editors and artists have worked closely with other authors - all acknowledged experts in their field - to produce a superb reference in which comprehensive texts on every species are complemented by accurate and detailed paintings and drawings of the birds themselves.