This is the second volume in the Birds of Africa series, covering the rich avifauna of the world's second largest continent. Volume II treats five orders, from gamebirds to pigeons. 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 second volume in the series deals comprehensively with the guineafowl, francolins, buttonquails, rails, cranes, finfoot, bustards, jacanas, painted-snipe, Crab Plover, oystercatchers, stilits and avocets, thick-knees, coursers and pratincoles, plovers and lapwings, sandpipers and allies, skuas, gulls, terns, skimmers, auks, sandgrouse and pigeons. 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.

This is the third volume in the Birds of Africa series, covering the rich avifauna of the world's second largest continent. Volume III deals with the near-passerines, from parrots to woodpeckers. 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 third volume in the series deals comprehensively with the parrots, turacos, cuckoos, barn owls, typical owls, nightjars, swifts, mousebirds, trogons, kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, wood-hoopoes, Hoopoe, hornbills, barbets, honeyguides and woodpeckers. 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.

A comprehensive account of the birds of Africa. The text covers all the avifaunal families that occur in Africa, discusses the species that occur within each family, and provides representative examples of each family in depth.

This is the fourth volume in the Birds of Africa series, covering the rich avifauna of the world's second largest continent. Volume IV covers the first 12 families of the passerines.

"The Birds of Africa is the first comprehensive handbook on the entire avifauna of the African continent. It covers breeding birds in full detail, with sections on range and status, description, field characters, voice, general habits (including migration), food, and breeding biology. Non-breeding visitors are covered more briefly, with emphasis on their status and behavior while in Africa. Color plates show all species in almost all plumages -- male, female, immature, and non-breeding. Beautifully executed, they combine "field guide" attention to detail and diagnostic features with the realism of natural poses. Line drawings illustrate behavioral and identification points in the text. Geographical ranges are shown in maps which distinguish breeding and non-breeding distributions and in many instances also show regional variations in abundance. References and a discography complete the volume."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Birds of Africa South of the Sahara provides unrivalled coverage of African birds in a single volume, and is the first book to describe and illustrate all of the birds found in Africa south of the Sahara Desert (the Afrotropic Region), including Socotra, Pemba and islands in the Gulf of Guinea. * Some 2,105 species are covered, with an additional 70 vagrants briefly described, and more than 2,000 images assembled on 359 plates. * Illustrations portray most distinctive plumages, as well as diagnostic flight patterns and major geographic variants. * Species descriptions give precise identification features, highlighting differences between similar species, as well as briefly reporting habitat, status and calls. * Distribution maps for each species are based on the latest atlas surveys. * The most up-to-date taxonomy is used, with many new species described and illustrated for the first time. Despite its exceptional coverage, this guide is compact enough to use in the field, and follows the standard field guide format, with texts and range maps appearing opposite the color plates.