Birds of Southern Africa Princeton Field Guides

Editorial Review

Birds of Southern Africa is the best and most authoritative guide to the birds of one of the world's most fertile birding regions. Two hundred color plates comprising over 4,000 expert illustrations help birders to distinguish all of southern Africa's approximately 950 bird species. The illustrations have labels highlighting diagnostic features, and many birds are depicted in flight as well as still. Special attention is given to plumage variation by age, sex, and season.

The informative text, written by eminent ornithologists, is fully integrated with the color plates to facilitate use in the field. Detailed species accounts emphasize the essential characteristics of each bird, including information on behavior, calls, and habitat preferences.

All species names and divisions are in line with the latest recommendations of the International Ornithological Committee, while well-known and local common names are also included. Both beginners and advanced birders will appreciate the regional checklist, quick reference guides, and excellent family summaries. Up-to-date distribution maps feature dual shading to indicate areas of low and high abundance, while cross-referencing is made easy with color coding and a simple numbering system.

Customer Reviews

Well presented field guide for identification

2008-10-03
The size of the book is appropriate for carrying in the field. The narrative is concise and well presented. The pictures of the birds are easy to reference. The real test of a field guide, though, is how useful it is when there is an unidentified bird in front of you. I will not know that until I get back from S. Africa in March but this book appears comparable to the better guides for US birds.

Easy to use reference book.

2008-05-13
We wanted to label all the photos of birds we took in South Africa. This book made it easy to locate the drawings of the birds. . .drawings that were very lifelike. . .and attach the names to the photos. We highly recommend this guide.

Great looking guide

2008-02-24
This guide looks perfect for my needs. I have looked it over carefully, even though I haven't had a chance to use it in the field. I definitely like the quick reference guide to bird types inside the front and back covers and the color-coded reference to bird groups. Look forward to using this guide in the field.

A standard for other field guides

2007-12-11
Warning: using this field guide will make you dissatisfied with many other field guides. You will enjoy studying and using this guide.
The illustrations are large and detailed, distinctly more accurate than most guides. In addition most are just beautiful works. They are grouped in species settings with juveniles, alternate plumage, flight and significant field marks highlighted.
On the opposite page: written description, habitat, abundancy status and call descriptions with a range map plus the Afrikaans name.
As an example of the illustrations: the Laughing Dove is illustrated by two flight poses and a profile. The profile has arrows noting 'no hind collar', 'cinnamon back' and 'black-flecked necklace'. The written text notes marks that distinguish this bird from a Cape Turtle-Dove.
The cover is plastic coated and the pages have a lesser water resistant coating.
A lot of attention to detail went into creating this book --colored coded page edges according to bird group, groups of waterbirds and hawks in flight for comparison, a checklist near the index and internet addresses of birding resources in the area.
All this in a work that I carried in a large pants pocket every day.
It just makes me wish such books were available for many more areas.

Excellent Field Guide for South Africa

2007-11-24
Well worth the money to enjoy your trip to South Africa even more. Even with a good guide (like we had with Transfrontiers) it is well worth taking a strong field guide like Birds of Southern Africa. That way when your guide is trying to tell you what you are looking at, you can see the picture up close and get a better idea. We have done many trips to various parts of Africa and this is one of the best guides we have used.

Exactly what I wanted

2007-06-08

Absolutely up-to-date and both beautifully and comprehensively illustrated, this field guide is a terrific reference as well as a superb visual record of the rich variety of a region that is home to one-tenth of all bird species.

Excellent Comprehensive Field Guide 2007-03-29
I'm so glad I bought this guide before visiting South Africa recently. I took it with me everywhere and it shows! It is easy to find the bird group you are looking for from the table of contents as well as quick references (both names and diagrams) that direct you to the appropriate page. The drawings are very well done. I especially like how distinguishing features and subtle differences between similar species are pointed out both in the written descriptions and diagrams, making for easier identification. Also, in species where juveniles or breeding birds differ considerably in plumage, additional diagrams are added to depict this.

With this many species, space is limited, and I have read complaints that there is not enough information about the species, so I suppose that is something to consider if you are looking for in-depth descriptions, but I don't think that was the intention of the authors for this guide. As a field guide it is excellent and reasonably sized to carry around with you in a backpack (not a pocket guide!). If I want to know more about a particular species, I look it up on the internet later. I looked at some other books at a local bookstore in South Africa and I was glad I had bought this one. Definitely recommended.

Birds of Southern Africa 2007-03-08
Book was purchased for our forthcoming trip to Botswana. It seems to give excellent coverage of the birds
we're likely to encounter there and with little repetition of birds we've seen before in Kenya and Tanzania.
The maps are well done and illustrations are excellent.

Birds of South Africa 2007-02-23
Sinclair's book is a big improvement on the earlier fieldguides for the area that I had (Newman and Prozesky). The art is better and the info is compactly displayed. I can't claim to be knowledgeable about this avifauna, nor have I used the book in the field. However, the book is just the sort of new work that I was looking for in preparation for a visit to South Africa.

Birds of Southern Africa 2006-08-30
I own all the field guides for this area and the Sinclair book is the best. The illustrations are excellent and the text and range maps are opposite the illustrations making it easy to use in the field. I do question the inclusion of some species where there are only two or three records for the area covered as this makes someone visiting the area go through a lot of alternatives to make an identification. Also better explanation of the summer ranges of certain species would help.