The Birds of Africa

An authoritative reference work that numbers eight volumes. It covers all breeding species in full, with details of range, status, description, voice, general habits and breeding; non-breeding visitors are treated more briefly, with emphasis on their status and behaviour whilst in Africa. Extensively illustrated with large format colour plates by Martin Woodcock. Includes full bibliographies, acoustic references and indexes of English, French and scientific names.

Volumes 1 to 7 in this series were originally published by Academic Press (volumes 1-6) and Christopher Helm (volume 7) between 1986-2004. The series did not cover Madagascar though and a tentative volume 8 has long been rumoured to be in the making. In October 2012 Christopher Helm announced that it will finally publish volume 8, which covers the Malagasy region. At the same time, they will reprint all previous volumes, some of which have been out of print for years, with new ISBNs. Please note that these reprints do not contain any new content.