Habitats of Africa A Field Guide for Birders, Naturalists, and Ecologists

Having experienced some of the lesser travelled parts of Africa and realised the gap in mainstream scientific knowledge to some of these areas, I would say that this field guide comprehensively covers many of the ecological nuances that exist on this tremendously diverse continent. Beautifully laid out and comfortably compact, this guide has sufficient scientific detail, yet approachable format, indexes and text.
This is a field guide that has a firm place in any keen naturalist’s library who is interested in African wildlife, birds and ecology.
Very well done to the authors for having pulled this wonderful resource together!

I have been lucky enough to visit quite a bit of Africa for birding, so on receiving this (the latest in the Habitats of the World series), I set myself the challenge to write down how many habitats I could think of. I like to think I am imaginative, but I could only come up with twelve. To my shame, I then saw that the authors have covered 85 major African habitats in this book. These are not just landscapes; they extend to marine habitats too. Some of these habitats are immense, but importantly, others are quite restricted, and they often contain the most endangered birds.

So having been to north-west Zambia a while back, I decided to look at a really restricted habitat: the tall, dry woodland which is known locally as Mavunda. There are five pages devoted to this great birding habitat (home to Margaret’s Batis and Perrin’s Bush-Shrike, to mention just two species).

The layout for each habitat is the same with concise sections such as “In a Nutshell” to tell you in fewer than 20 words what it is. Then there is a list of other habitats that have affinities with the one you are reading about. A more detailed description of the habitat follows, but importantly, this is written in an engaging way, minimising complex terminology. A section on Conservation outlines the many challenges that face this habitat, and if protection is in place it is explained. A section on Wildlife covers the main taxa, and includes a decent amount of bird information. Finally, there is a section on Distribution so you can work out how to see this habitat, and a list of key sites such as national parks.

A book with this title could be dull, but each page has several photographs and there are many useful diagrams and maps too. Personally, I hope that at some point Princeton will look at publishing this book (and others in the Habitats of the World series) as larger format books with more space for larger images and text. To me, this is a book I want to work on before a trip, and I do not see it as a field guide.

Introductory pages explain more generally the structure of Africa and its climate, taking each of the regions in turn. The subsequent habitat descriptions are grouped by main habitat type rather than region, which makes perfect sense. So, my Mavunda habitat is one of ten considered within a grouping called “Warm Humid Broadleaf Forests”.

Probably the most important thing that this book does is make you aware of habitats that do not get mentioned in regular conversation. Without this kind of input, we would all simply talk about the twelve habitats that I could remember!