The Atlas of Southern African Birds

Edited by:
  • J. A. Harrison,
  • D. G. Allan,
  • L. G. Underhill,
  • M. Herremans,
  • A. J. Tree,
  • V. Parker &
  • C. J. Brown
BirdLife South Africa, PO Box 34046, Rhodes Gift, 7707, South Africa:1997.Twovolumes Pp. 1, 500. R648)
From a plate in The Birds of Africa: Volume V edited by E. K. Urban, C. H. Fry and S. Keith with illustrations by Martin Woodcock and Ian Willis. In a review in Nature of volume three, C. M. Perrins said that the project “continues on its way to becoming the standard work on African ornithology for the twenty-first century”. Academic, $145, £85.

This atlas is the result of the largest biodiversity project yet completed on the African continent. Covering 932 bird species, it represents the work of 5,000 field volunteers over a five-year period, with another five years for data-processing, writing and editing the contributions of 60 authors.

The result has been well worth the wait. For 775 species (all but those that are either vagrants or marginal for the subcontinent), there is a distribution map reflecting the reporting rate for every quarter-degree square of the surface area of six countries (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland) as well as a breakdown of the reporting rate for each vegetation type.

A particularly useful feature is a monthly graph of distribution and breeding for each of eight zones into which the subcontinent has been divided (albeit arbitrarily). This allows the reader to infer seasonal patterns, which in Africa are highly variable because of differing climatic conditions. For 51 species with marked seasonality in occurrence, an expanded format with six additional seasonal distribution maps is provided. The advantage of such analysis for migrant species is immediately obvious.

More importantly, the breeding season for a given species often differs between tropical and subtropical climates, or summer and winter rainfall areas, and these analyses provide revealing insight into these patterns. For biologists engaged in, or planning, studies on southern African birds, this work will prove indispensable.

There are some minor faults: the texts for each species, for example, are not similarly enlightening. Of necessity, reporting for all areas has not been uniformly regular, as the density of competent observers is not evenly distributed throughout the subcontinent. But rather than being disingenuous, the editors are at pains to point out, in a quantifiable way, exactly what the limitations of the data are, which provides a valuable insight into what remains to be done.

What is extraordinary about this achievement is that it could never have been accomplished even 25 years ago — there simply would not have been enough volunteers to complete the task of recording the data. The past quarter century has seen a surge of interest in birding in southern Africa, which has allowed this project to come to fruition.

There are two wishes on my list. The first is that someone has the drive to repeat the exercise before too long, so that the effects of development on the region's avifauna, as a flagship group, can be accurately monitored. The second is that it will inspire the production of atlases for other taxa, so that the extraordinary biodiversity of this corner of the Earth, currently experiencing an exponential increase in development, can be better documented.