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A review of "Birds of Africa South of the Sahara: A Comprenhensive Illustrated Field Guide"
This is a comprehensive field guide to the birds of
Africa south of the Sahara, or more specifically south of the 20th parallel
north. It doesn't cover Madagascar, the Comoros, the Seychelles or the
Mascarenes, which are dealt with in another field guide, “Birds of the Indian
Ocean Islands”. Nor does it cover Cap Verde or St Helena. It *does* cover
Socotra, which is politically part of Yemen.
The field guide comes across as an over-sized mega-version of Heinzel-Fitter-Parslow. It's one of the heaviest field guides I've handled, and I wonder whether anyone would really want to carry it around on a bird safari south of the 20th parallel? Curiously, the book contains a long list of sponsors who donated money to the project. Thank you, David Human and Gregg Darling, whoever you are!
The 1,000+ bird species presented range from the common to the extremely rare. Among the more common ones are the Pied Crow, the European Roller, the European Bee-eater and the Ostrich. (The moniker “European” is ironic for birds common in sub-Saharan Africa and comes from the fact that they nest in Europe.) Among the rare ones is the Sao Tomé Grosbeak, only found around Rio Xufexufe at the island of Sao Tomé. There are only 50 left. But the prize for super-rarity goes to the Nechisar Nightjar, only known from one disembodied wing found on a highway in the Nechisar Plains in Ethiopia…
Not sure how to rate this jumbo-sized volume, but eventually I settled for four stars.
The field guide comes across as an over-sized mega-version of Heinzel-Fitter-Parslow. It's one of the heaviest field guides I've handled, and I wonder whether anyone would really want to carry it around on a bird safari south of the 20th parallel? Curiously, the book contains a long list of sponsors who donated money to the project. Thank you, David Human and Gregg Darling, whoever you are!
The 1,000+ bird species presented range from the common to the extremely rare. Among the more common ones are the Pied Crow, the European Roller, the European Bee-eater and the Ostrich. (The moniker “European” is ironic for birds common in sub-Saharan Africa and comes from the fact that they nest in Europe.) Among the rare ones is the Sao Tomé Grosbeak, only found around Rio Xufexufe at the island of Sao Tomé. There are only 50 left. But the prize for super-rarity goes to the Nechisar Nightjar, only known from one disembodied wing found on a highway in the Nechisar Plains in Ethiopia…
Not sure how to rate this jumbo-sized volume, but eventually I settled for four stars.
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