29th January 2012: Some great new photos of endemic Mauritius species have been added to the Mauritius pages.

20th January 2012: A major revision of the Benin pages is underway with some great new photos, an up to date checklist and revised references. See introduction, species and references for the new pages.

11th November 2011: Book and Media Sales and Reviews

We have set up a new page on the African Bird Club website at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/bookreviews/sales.html for the purchase of Books and Media from WildSounds, the Club’s official bookseller. ABC will receive a donation for its conservation fund for every item purchased from WildSounds via this page.

In addition, we are in the process of loading all the book and media reviews from past bulletins and these can be found at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/bookreviews/Summary.html  So far, over 160 reviews have been loaded and links put in place from the sales page to a review if available.

Have a look at these pages and we hope that you will consider using them for your purchases and in turn generate money for ornithological conservation in Africa.

10th November 2011: Nous avons traduit en français quelques pages du site web du ABC afin d’aider les francophones à comprendre les buts du Club, par exemple, et comment s’y inscrire. Vous pouvez voir quelques-unes de ces pages à http://www.africanbirdclub.org/club/aboutABC_fr.html et à http://www.africanbirdclub.org/sales/sales4_fr.html

Nous tenons à remercier ceux qui ont aidé ABC à cette tache et nous espérons traduire d’autres pages dans l’avenir en fonction de vos commentaires et de vos besoins.

Entretemps, nous avons l’intention de traduire ces mêmes pages en portugais.

We have translated a few pages of the ABC website into French in order to help French speakers understand the aims of ABC and how to become members for example. You can see samples of these pages at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/club/aboutABC_fr.html and http://www.africanbirdclub.org/sales/sales4_fr.html

We would like to thank those people who helped with this task and we would hope to translate more pages in the future depending on your feedback and requirements.

Meanwhile, we want to translate the same few pages into Portuguese so if any Portuguese speakers would like to volunteer to help with this work, I would be grateful if they would contact me directly.

3rd November 2011: A report of a recent visit to The Seychelles has been added to the Seychelles visiting page. New photos of some of The Seychelles endemic species have also been added.

6th October 2011: Reports on Aberdare Cisticola and Lake Kenyatta ecosystem have been added for download at the Conservation Fund page. Both projects were funded by ABC.

5th October 2011: We are pleased to welcome Fin and Feather Pursuits as Corporate Sponsors of the African Bird Club.

5th October 2011: We are pleased to welcome Letaka Safaris as Corporate Sponsors of the African Bird Club.

29th September 2011: Several new photographs and information has been added to the Uganda pages following a tour of many of the National Parks in July 2011.

5th September 2011: 12th African Bird ID Challenge

We are pleased to launch the 12th African Bird ID Challenge which you can find at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/challenge.html. You will also find links to the answers of the 11th and previous Challenges on this page.

Many of you entered the 11th Challenge and 44% of those who entered got 3 correct answers.

The prizes for the 12th Challenge are a 50% discount on a Cape Town Pelagics trip or a copy of Southern African Birdfinder by Callan Cohen, Claire Spottiswoode and Jonathan Rossouw, and African Bird Club membership for 1 year. The ID Challenge is a collaborative project between the African Bird Club and Birding Africa. Through it, we aim to increase interest in African birds and stimulate debate on their identification.

We hope that a large number of you will try this latest Challenge.

3rd September 2011: The contents of ABC Bulletin 18.2 have been added and individual references added to the relevant country pages.

2nd September 2011: Following the ABC tour to Rwanda in July 2011, a major revision of the Rwanda pages has been undertaken and a significant number of new photographs have been added.

1st September 2011: A selection of photographs from Djibouti have been added to the Djibouti pages.

1st September 2011: We are pleased to welcome Nature's Wonderland Safaris as Corporate Sponsors of the African Bird Club.

9th August 2011: We are pleased to welcome New Venture Uganda Travel as Corporate Sponsors of the African Bird Club.

3rd August 2011: New references and papers for download have been added to the Cape Verde References page.

1st August 2011: Details of the records of a trip to Ethiopia made in February 2011 have been added to the Ethiopia Visiting page.

13th June 2011: Details of ABC local payment schemes in Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe have been added to the Join ABC page.

13th June 2011: Further details of ABC at Birdfair and PAOC 2012 have been added to the Events page.

25th May 2011: Sale of paintings from Birds of East Africa

John Gale was one of the artists of the plates of the popular Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa, T & A.D. Poyser, London (2002). His original paintings from the Field Guide are now available for purchase from the African Bird Club. All commission from sales will go into our Conservation Fund to support ornithological projects in Africa.

See this page for further sales information.

23rd May 2011: ABC podcast

Listen to ABC's Chairman, Keith Betton, being interviewed by Charlie Moores on Club and Africa topics at Talking Naturally

6th May 2011: References from ABC Bulletin 18(1) have been added to the related country reference pages.

2nd May 2011: Southern Sudan independence

A map has been added to the Sudan Geography page which shows the split of the country into Northern and Southern Sudan after the formal declaration of independence in July 2011.

29th April 2011: Two major milestones of African bird images and sound recordings

Two major milestones have been reached - the 2,000th species was loaded onto the African Bird Image Database (AFBID) of photographs and the 1,000th species onto xeno-canto Africa, the catalogue of shared bird sounds from Africa. These two databases are now the main online resource for birders with an interest in Africa.

AFBID was launched by ABC in 2005 in partnership with Bird Explorers and Birding Africa, and since then over 700 photographers have loaded nearly 16,000 bird images representing the 2,000 species – all photographed in Africa. Many people use the database for help with identification. A comprehensive range of search capabilities allows the user to find images of particular species and to view different species within countries.

xeno-canto Africa was launched in 2008 as part of xeno-canto, the leading website for the storage and retrieval of songs and calls. The system has comprehensive features which include powerful search and mapping capabilities and the ability to identify mystery songs. Sixty sound recordists have contributed over 2,500 recordings representing 22 hours and 1,000 species.

ABC and its partners plan to maintain these as primary resources for African ornithology for many years to come, and would welcome new photographs and recordings from anyone who has birded in Africa.

27th April 2011: Revised version of country checklists launched

A revised version of the country checklists has been launched on the African Bird Club website at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/checklists/index.html

The database which supports the checklists has about 1,300 new and revised records. Many countries will have some modifications but the following countries have a significant number of changes: Cape Verde; Eritrea; Morocco; South Africa; Zambia.

A new checklist for Western Sahara has been included. The X=rejected records have been removed following a number of requests.

The following publications and documents have been used for the April 2011 revision: ABC Bulletins up to and including 17(2); ABC Checklist March 2010; Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea; Birds of Zambia; Birds of South Africa BirdLife revised checklist; Bulletin of the British Ornithological Club up to and including 130(4); 6th Cape Verde Bird Report; Go-South Bulletin for Morocco and Western Sahara; Honeyguide up to and including 56(2); Malimbus up to and including 32(2); Ostrich up to and including 81(3); Scopus up to and including 28.

The country checklists continue to be a well used part of the ABC website with over 20,000 downloads to date.

21st April 2011: New photographs have been added to the Mali pages.

20th April 2011: New papers for download have been added to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde reference pages.

20th April 2011: The ABC Annual Report and Accounts 2010 have been added to the website for download.

10th April 2011: New photos of Cape Verde Swift Apus alexandri and Fea's Petrel Pterodroma feae have been added to the Cape Verde species page.

9th April 2011: 11th African Bird ID Challenge

We are pleased to launch the 11th African Bird ID Challenge which you can find at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/challenge.html. You will also find links to the answers of the 10th and previous Challenges on this page.

Many of you entered the 10th Challenge and 59% of those who entered got 3 correct answers.

The prizes for the 11th Challenge are a 50% discount on a Cape Town Pelagics trip or a copy of Southern African Birdfinder by Callan Cohen, Claire Spottiswoode and Jonathan Rossouw, and African Bird Club membership for 1 year.
The ID Challenge is a collaborative project between the African Bird Club and Birding Africa. Through it, we aim to increase interest in African birds and stimulate debate on their identification.

We hope that a large number of you will try this latest Challenge.

31st March 2011: A correspondent has sent us a personal report of travels and birdwatching in Kenya - see 'The magic of Kenya' at Kenya Visiting.

24th March 2011: New photographs and information have been added to the Canary Islands pages.

23rd March 2011: The list of projects supported by the ABC conservation fund has been updated and new reports added for download. The total of awards made is over £95,000 since the inception of the programme.

21st March 2011: A recent ABC representative's report has been added to the Zambia contacts page.

7th March 2011: A recent ABC representative's report has been added to the Madagascar contacts page.

26th February 2011: Recent ABC representatives' reports have been added to the contacts pages of Egypt, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia and South Africa. These reports contain some interesting comments and observations relating to the state of birds and conservation in these countries.

25th February 2011: The Djibouti pages have been significantly updated following the receipt of much new information from Houssein Rayaleh.

20th February 2011: We have added some useful information and interesting photographs to the Burundi pages. This was sent by a correspondent following a recent trip to the country and will be of interest to anyone planing or considering a trip in the near future.

16th February 2011: A report by Michael Mills on bird conservation and research in Angola can be downloaded from the Angola conservation page.

11th February 2011: We have added a number of Sue Walsh's excellent photos from recent trips to Ethiopia and Senegal to the associated country pages.

26th January 2011: We have added a number of Sue Walsh's excellent photos from a recent trip to Kenya to the Kenya pages.

24th January 2011: A trip report from December 2010 has been added to the Somalia visiting page.

22nd January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

21st January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Sierra Leone, Somalia and South Africa (a large update).

20th January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of The Seychelles (a large update).

15th January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe and Senegal.

14th January 2011: You can download a paper by DOWSETT, R.J. editor (1990) Survey of the Fauna and Flora of Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda. Tauraco Research Report No.3 from the Rwanda references page.

7th January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Kenya (a large update), Liberia, Libya, Madeira and Mauritania.

5th January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Ghana and Guinea (Conakry).

4th January 2011: Sale of paintings from Birds of Africa

Martin Woodcock was the artist for 215 of the total 232 plates of the 7 Volume Birds of Africa. More of his original paintings have been made available for purchase from the African Bird Club. All commission from sales will go into our Conservation Fund to support ornithological projects in Africa. You can view the paintings here or via the ABC home page.

3rd January 2011: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon and The Gambia.

31st December 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic and Djibouti.

30th December 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Algeria, Azores and Benin.

12th November 2010: 10th African Bird ID Challenge

We are pleased to launch the 10th African Bird ID Challenge which you can find at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/challenge.html. You will also find links to the answers of the 9th and previous Challenges on this page.

Many of you entered the 9th Challenge and 48% of those who entered got 3 correct answers.

The prizes for the 10th Challenge are a 50% discount on a Cape Town Pelagics trip or a copy of Southern African Birdfinder by Callan Cohen, Claire Spottiswoode and Jonathan Rossouw, and African Bird Club membership for 1 year.
The ID Challenge is a collaborative project between the African Bird Club and Birding Africa. Through it, we aim to increase interest in African birds and stimulate debate on their identification.

We hope that a large number of you will try this latest Challenge.

27th October 2010: Updates have been made to the CAR Hotspots and Visiting pages following the receipt of new information from a correspondent.

14th September 2010: The contents of ABC Bulletin 17(2) have been added here and the associated references have been added to the country pages.

26th August 2010: Birdfair 2010

Photos from the ABC stand at Birdfair 2010 have been added to the events page.

26th August 2010: ABC Conservation Fund Tour Rwanda 2011

We are delighted that Birding Africa have organised an ABC Conservation Tour to Rwanda in 2011. This Tour follows the theme of previous Tours by visiting lesser known countries in Africa and in so doing, generating funds for ornithological conservation.

You can read more about the places we shall visit and some of the species which we may see by downloading BIrding Rwanda, an article from ABC Bulletin 17(2).

We hope that you will be able to join us on this exciting Tour.

12th August 2010: You can download the report 'A contribution to the Ornithology of Zambia - Tauraco Research Report No.9' directly from the African Bird Club website at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/Zambia/refs.html.

4th August 2010: Sale of paintings from Birds of Africa

Martin Woodcock was the artist for 215 of the total 232 plates of the 7 Volume Birds of Africa. His original paintings are now available for purchase from the African Bird Club. All commission from sales will go into our Conservation Fund to support ornithological projects in Africa. You can view the paintings at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/club/paintingsales.html or via the ABC home page at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/index.html.

2nd August 2010: Several new references have been added to the Libya reference page.

27th July 2010: Updates have been made to the Canary Islands pages. 10 new photos and some modifications to the text of the Canary Islands pages have been made.

23rd July 2010: New photos added.

A few habitat photos have been added to the pages of Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These are the first that we have received for these countries.

23rd July 2010: Update to Libya pages

We have completed a major upgrade to the Libya pages of this website. There had been little ornithological activity in Libya for some 30 years but the situation has changed in recent times and new records, papers and trip reports are being published.

We have been able to revise and improve the website as a result of a major contribution of text and photographs from African Bird Club member Rob Tovey who is at present living and working in Bengazi in northern Libya. We have restructured the pages around the three key geographic areas of Tripolitania in the north-west, Cyrenaica in the north-east, and the Fezzan, the desert areas which cover some 90% of the land area of this vast country. Each of these geographic entities has climate, habitat and hence ornithological differences which are discussed in the text.

The information will be useful for anyone planning a birding trip to Libya, visiting as a tourist with incidental bird watching or who is generally interested in the birdlife of this country. Much of the country remains to be explored however and the opportunity exists to add to the base of ornithological knowledge of Libya as well as seeing some interesting birds.

Rob also writes about his regular birding experiences in Libya which you can read about in his blog at http://www.birdingforalark.blogspot.com.

22nd July 2010: Sierra Leone trip report

A Sierra Leone trip report written by Robert Langhendries and Benoît Forget following an independently organised birdwatching trip to Sierra Leone in January 2010 can be downloaded from the visiting page. "We hope the first of its kind of independent bird trip to this - magnificent and safe (!) - country of Sierra Leone will motivate others to do so!

24th June 2010: 9th African Bird ID Challenge

We are pleased to launch the 9th African Bird ID Challenge. You will also find links to the answers of the 8th and previous Challenges on this page. Many more of you entered the 8th Challenge and we are pleased to announce that Pierre van der Wielen and Peter Thompson were the winners.

The prizes for the 9th Challenge are a 50% discount on a Cape Town Pelagics trip or a copy of Southern African Birdfinder by Callan Cohen, Claire Spottiswoode and Jonathan Rossouw, and African Bird Club membership for 1 year.

The ID Challenge is a collaborative project between the African Bird Club and Birding Africa. Through it, we aim to increase interest in African birds and stimulate debate on their identification.

11th June 2010: The country visiting pages have been updated to reflect the latest tour offerings of our sponsors.

16th May 2010: We are pleased to announce that xeno-canto/Africa has hit 1500 recordings, with about 700 species now represented. The map on this page http://www.xeno-canto.org/africa/locations.php?query=idae will give you an idea where the recordings have come from so far, and from which areas contributions would be most welcome. Congo or Angola anyone? Egypt? Take your gear out there on your next trip or dust off some old tapes!

16th May 2010: References from Malimbus 32(1) have been added to the relevant country sections.

22nd April 2010: A hotspots map and a photo of Emerald Starling Lamprotornis iris, a near endemic species, have been added to the Sierra Leone pages.

19th April 2010: A new version of the ABC checklist has been added.

There are only a small number of changes to the preferred names this time round - many of them corrections of typos in earlier versions. The changes are listed specifically in the Introduction.

The notes have been updated as necessary in particular incorporating HBW vol. 14 (October 2009), updates to the Clements list (December 2009), the IOC list (about every 3 months with the last version 2.4 dated March 2010) and the Birdlife list (version 2 in June 2009).

Users will notice that the order of species within families and of families is still broadly the "traditional" one as used by Birds of Africa, HBW and several others. I am aware that most recent lists though now use a revised order. I would welcome views from users as to whether or not the ABC list should be changed to this - clearly there would be quite a lot of work involved!

Please let me know views on the order question as well as any corrections,
comments and suggestions. I do not necessarily see for example original papers proposing new taxonomies and new records although I do have access to many of the major explicitly ornithological journals. I do not promise to implement everything although I always take note - aside from anything else comments from different people often disagree with each other.

Peter Lack

14th April 2010: The 2009 Annual Report and Accounts can be downloaded here.

14th April 2010: The list of projects supported by the ABC conservation fund has been updated and total awards are now over £91,000.

14th April 2010: The list of ABC's corporate sponsors has been updated.

12th April 2010: The contents of ABC Bulletin 17(1) have been added here and the associated references have been added to the country pages.

6th April 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of South Africa, Tanzania, Tristan da Cunha, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

29th March 2010: Trip reports from 2010 have been added to the visiting pages of Djibouti, Mali and Somalia.

17th March 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, The Seychelles and Sierra Leone.

12th March 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Kenya, Libya, Madeira and Mali.

10th March 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Egypt, Ethiopia, The Gambia, a large update for Ghana, and Guinea.

25th February 2010: Recent sightings have been added to the news sections of Angola, Azores, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Canary Islands and Cape Verde Islands.

22nd February 2010: A report has been received from the ABC representative in Egypt and been added to the Egypt contacts page.

18th February 2010: 15 years of the African Bird Club

You can download this article which was written by Club Chairman Keith Betton and printed in BirdLife International Africa Newsletter 12.1 in December 2009.

15th February 2010: Central African Republic Update

We have received some information following a recent trip to this rarely visited country and have updated some of the CAR pages. In particular, there is a new section Sangha Lodge on the hotspots page which mentions some of the unusual species seen on this trip.

7th February 2010: Reports have been received from ABC representatives and have been added to the contacts pages of the following countries: Djibouti; Eritrea; Kenya; Liberia; Madagascar; Malawi; Nigeria; Rwanda; Seychelles, Sierra Leone; Somalia; Uganda and Zambia.

2nd February 2010: Sierra Leone Update

A major revision of the Sierra Leone pages has been completed following a visit during December 2009 on the ABC supported Rockjumper tour. New photographs and information on hotspots and visiting has been included.

January 2010: Bird Watching Magazine Review of ABC Website

25th January 2010: African Bird Club is pleased to welcome Birdfinders to its growing list of Corporate Sponsors.

4th January 2010: Country Checklists Update

A new version of the country checklists has been launched on the African Bird Club website at http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/checklists/index.html. The database which supports the checklists has about 1,300 new and revised records. Many countries will have some modifications but the following countries have a significant number of changes: Comoros Islands; Congo (Brazzaville); Democratic Republic of Congo; Eritrea; Ethiopia and Libya.

A new status of SAT has been introduced to include records of satellite tracked birds.

The following publications and documents have been used for this version: ABC Bulletins up to and including 16(1); ABC Checklist May 2009; Birds of the Comores; Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea; Bulletin of the British Ornithological Club up to and including 2006; Malimbus up to and including 31(1); Scopus up to and including 25. In addition, we would like to thank numerous correspondents for their personal communications with suggestions for new and revised records.

The country checklists continue to be a well used part of the ABC website with over 10,000 downloads to date.

Updates 2005-2007 2008-2009 2010-2011