Book Reviews

A photographic guide to birds of East Africa
Dave Richards. 1995. 144pp, many colour photographs. New Holland, London. UK£7.99

A photographic guide to birds of Namibia
Ian and Jackie Sinclair. 144pp, many colour photographs. New Holland, London. UK£7.99

from ABC Bulletin 3.2 September 1996 page 138.

These two books are part of a series of similar titles covering various parts of the world. Each contains a series of photographs of a proportion of the species which occur - in the East African
one 265 out the total of about 1350 species. The choice is towards the larger birds and is stated to be biased towards those likely to be seen by ordinary tourists.

There is normally one photograph per species. Most are good quality portraits which have reproduced quite well. They were taken by a variety of photographers (Namibia) or mostly by
Dave Richards himself (East Africa). The accompanying texts are brief identification notes including habitats and calls, and there is a small range map included for each.

Inevitably both books are very incomplete and therefore of not much use to the serious birder. In addition the format is small (pages are 10 cm wide and 19 cm tall) and they will fit easily into the casual tourist's pocket. This latter is clearly the intended market but there are more complete books available at only a small increase in weight and cost.

Peter Lack

Last page update 21st September 2011