The Birder's Guide to Africa Contents

RANK COUNTRY PAGE RANK COUNTRY PAGE 1 Madagascar 72 37 Somalia 102 59a South Africa 39 Gambia 58 2 105 16 (+ Swaziland & Lesotho) 40 Liberia 69 3 Tanzania 112 47c 59d 41 Sudan 110 56a Ethiopia 53 4 42a Djibouti 48 Kenya 65 47a 5 42b Chad 42 53b 6 Cameroon 35 59c 44a Congo 45 Angola 25 41 30 7 44b Botswana 31 34a 42b 39 42a 8 Uganda 118 59h 47a Western Sahara 121 9 Namibia 86 59e 59f 26 19a 47b Central African Republic 41 58 53a 4 10a Ghana 59 25 40 10a 47b 47c Algeria 24 56b 10b DR Congo 46 59b 53a South Sudan 108 37 Gabon 56 34b 8 13a 53b Mauritania 79 22 5 13a 44a 15 Malawi 76 10b 53c Mali 78 Morocco 83 16 56a Egypt 49 59g 3 Zambia 122 17 56b Benin 30 Somaliland 103 19a 58 Ivory Coast 64 7 22 Rwanda 93 29 59a Tunisia 117 17 Sierra Leone 100 25 59b Togo 115 Nigeria 89 31 1 26 59c Niger 88 29 Mozambique 85 9 44b 59d Libya 70 Eritrea 52 30 59e Guinea-Bissau 63 Zimbabwe 124 31 59f Guinea 62 2 Senegal 97 34a 59g Burundi 34 Equatorial Guinea 34b 50 59h Burkina Faso 33 (+ Bioko & Annobón) *Ranks are the ranks of the Bird Importance Score for each territory; see p 9 for details. This map includes only mainland states and Madagascar; see the inside back cover for other island territories. The Birder's Guide to Africa Contents Michael Mills INTRODUCTION .............................................. 004 Photographs by Tasso Leventis Birding in the Region ................................................................ 006 Acknowledgements ...................................................................... 016 Photographic Credits ................................................................ 017 COUNTRY ACCOUNTS ..................... 018 FAMILY ACCOUNTS ................................ 126 GO-AWAY-BIRDING www.goawaybirding.com SPECIES ACCOUNTS ........................... 276 SUPPLEMENTS ................................................... 520 References .................................................................................................. 521 Species Appendices ...................................................................... 536 © Michael Mills 2017 ISBN print edition: 978-0-620-71725-0 Glossary and Abbreviations ............................................ 539 © photographs by Tasso Leventis and ISBN ebook edition: 978-0-620-71727-4 Quick Indexes ...................................................................................... 540 individual photographers. Published by GO-AWAY-BIRDING, 17 All rights reserved. No part of this Willow Road, Observatory 7925, Cape publication may be reproduced, stored in Town, South Africa. goawaybirding@ a retrieval system, or transmitted in any gmail.com. form, without the prior written permission Book layout and cover design by Toby of the copyright owner. Contact GO- Attwell. AWAY-BIRDING for all permission requests. Cover photograph: Cape Rockjumper by Tasso Leventis. With 68 territories, 142 bird families and 2,792 bird species, making sense of birding in the African region can be a challenge. In this guide, to my knowledge the first of its kind globally, relevant INTRODUCTION information on territories, families and species is brought together INTRODUCTION to provide a coherent birders' summary of the region, with a global perspective. Its contents draws on a wide range of sources and is based on 25 years of experience in the region. The book is meant for everyone who travels to see birds, or has an armchair interest therein. Through it I hope to inspire and encourage travelling and bird watching in Africa, particularly to new or little-known areas. I hope also to arm readers with a wide range of information so Intro- that they can make informed decisions on where and when to go birding, and get the most out of their trips. To maximise your benefit from this guide, it Family Accounts. A growing number of may help understanding some of the thinking world birders are realising that they don’t have duction behind it. the time and resources to go everywhere and chase everything. Rather than trying to see as Geographical coverage. This book covers the many species as possible, a more meaningful continent of Africa and its islands, referred and achievable goal is to strive to see all the to as 'the region' or 'the African region'. bird families in the world. Making this the All islands closer to Africa than any other primary goal ensures that as wide range of continent, regardless of political affiliation, bird diversity as possible is sampled. Besides are included. Thus, the region incorporates celebrating the bird diversity of the region Madeira (Portugal), the Canary Islands through photographs, the Family Accounts (Spain) and Socotra (Yemen), just some of the provide a brief description of each family in islands that are politically not African. For the the region, with tips on how to see them. sake of completeness, the Azores (Portugal) and Sinai are included too. The Azores are Species Accounts. A complete annotated slightly closer to Europe than Africa, but form list of all bird species recorded from the part of the region called Macaronesia (or the region, excluding introduced species, is Atlantic Islands), which is mainly African and provided under the Species Accounts. A includes Cape Verde, Madeira and the Canary general statement on the status, habitats and Islands. Finally, although Sinai is located in distribution of each species, and in most cases the Middle East it is politically part of Egypt. each subspecies, is given, plus a list of best sites to see each bird. Greater emphasis is Country Accounts. This chapter is essentially placed on endemic birds. a traveller's summary of each territory, but written from a birder's perspective. It Names and taxonomy. One of the most covers aspects of birds and birding, travel difficult decisions that I had to make during and literature. For world birders, I hope that the preparation of this guide was which the lists of key birds, arranged in categories, taxonomy and English bird names to use. will be especially useful, as they provide There are several competing world bird comprehensive lists of all important birds to lists, each with their own advantages and looked for when visiting that territory. shortcomings, and it was tempting to follow 4 | Introduction Introduction | 5 one of these lists to the letter, as this required hope will be both easy and interesting to use. believe the main one is that most of us follow While each of us places a different emphasis the least amount of effort. However, the Details of the adaptations made can be found what others before us have done. Going to on the various criteria used when selecting use of a well known taxonomy promotes in the introduction to the Species Accounts, little-known destinations provides a whole a travel destination, for the purposes of complacency and misses the opportunity but here I wish to point out that the English new set of challenges, including dealing with this analysis I have identified five types of INTRODUCTION to point out bird taxa of interest that may names of splits not accepted by the IOC List uncertainty. It is often this lack of information travellers, to act as reference points. As an INTRODUCTION otherwise be ignored as uninteresting, are given in green instead of black text. I do that prevents people from visiting certain individual you are likely to sit somewhere especially on a rushed birding trip. Also, the not lump any birds, simply because lumping areas. Few visitors, in turn, means that between these, but hopefully they will use of English names on world bird lists quite tends to make birds invisible. However, I do there will be little investment in travel prove useful for thinking about different often contradicts names in common use in note where there are proposals to lump birds infrastructure. And so many places remain at destinations. leading field guides, which creates confusion. and, through a specific formatting of scientific the point of being little visited. 1. World Listers. It is all about seeing new names (see Species Accounts), I share my As a result of conversations with various Which places break out of this and which birds, which means a strong focus on opinion as to which should be lumped. birders and my own personal experiences not, is hard to predict. Political stability, areas with endemic birds. Safety is also with using different world lists, I have come to Regarding the use of English names, I spent past and present, is certainly a major factor. a consideration, with very dangerous prefer the IOC World Bird List. Consequently, many hours investigating their use by world Destinations that are dangerous to visit or destinations avoided. There is also some I have based this book on the latest version bird lists, to understand why names in politically unstable will receive few birders. consideration for cost. Otherwise any of the IOC World Bird List (7.1; hereafter common use are often not followed. Together However, some places, for some or other conditions will be endured for new birds. 'IOC List'). However, other world lists make with experienced birding colleagues we reason, have not made it onto the birder's 2. Balanced. It is about many things; important contributions to our thinking have devised a philosophy for establishing radar. Malawi, for example, has reasonably birds and safety are the major factors in about bird diversity and species limits. a standardised world bird list of English comfortable travel conditions, excellent choosing a destination, but you expect For this reason I have consulted as many names based on common use, which has been birding and good other wildlife viewing on a reasonable level of comfort and are sources as possible in my deliberations over submitted for publication in the Bulletin of offer, yet is hardly ever visited by birders. interested in destinations that offer other taxonomy. In particular, the HBW & BirdLife the African Bird Club (Mills et al, submitted). Here I present an analysis which I hope will activities too, such as visits to historical Checklist (BirdLife International 2016) has Readers should refer to this for a full provide a fresh look at birding in the region.

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