Southern African Birds by Ian Sinclair & Ian Davidson

Southern African Birds (First Edition, Second Impression in Dust Jacket)

A Richly Illustrated Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of Southern Africa by Two Leading Birders

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Southern African Birds: A Photographic Guide
• Authors: Ian Sinclair & Ian Davidson
• Publisher: Struik Publishers (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town
• Publication Date: 1995
• ISBN-13: 9781868257850
• ISBN-10: 1868257851
• Edition Details: First published 1995, Second Impression, 1995.
• Binding: Publisher's pictorial hardcover (printed pictorial boards) with a laminated pictorial dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Large quarto-format illustrated field guide, 304 pages. With colour photographs, colour illustrations and distribution maps throughout.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The glossy pictorial boards are clean and bright with no visible wear. The spine and corners are sound. The lower page edges show some light toning or spotting.
• Interior: The text block is tight and sound. The title page is clean, and the colour plates and maps are bright and clean, with no markings, ex-library stamps or underlining.
• The Dust Jacket: Present, and protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover. The laminated pictorial jacket is good overall, with the front panel clean. There is slight creasing and rubbing to the head of the spine, a faint yellowish stain to the lower left of the back panel, and light toning to the back.

Synopsis & Historical Value

Southern African Birds: A Photographic Guide, published by Struik in Cape Town in 1995, is an identification guide to the birds of the subregion, with more than 700 species covered, including the commonly seen residents and breeders as well as rare visitors and vagrants.

The book pairs over a thousand colour photographs with distribution maps for each species. Painted illustrations show those identification points that photographs tend to miss, and the photographs show plumage variation and birds in flight. It is a taller, thinner format than many comparable guides.

Written by two well-known birders, Ian Sinclair and Ian Davidson, it is a useful field and reference work. It will suit birdwatchers and collectors of Africana natural history who want a clean, jacketed copy of a well-regarded Struik title.

Author Profile: Ian Sinclair

Ian Sinclair, born in 1948, is regarded as one of Africa's foremost field birders and has written more than twenty books on African birds. He was the original lead author of the Sasol field guide and co-wrote Birds of Africa South of the Sahara with Peter Ryan.

His other titles include a field guide to the birds of the Kruger National Park, written with Ian Whyte. He is known for having photographed almost every southern African species in the pre-digital era, which underpins the photographic approach of this guide.

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