Sources and Basis

The primary basis of this list is:

BoA – Birds of Africa vols 1-7 (1982-2004) (edited by one or more of C.H. Fry, E.K. Urban, G.S. Keith, L. Brown & K. Newman). Academic Press, London.
Lists Scientific, English and French names, full details of Range and Status, and a list of recognised races which have occurred in the area covered, with brief notes of range of each. Covers the mainland of the African continent and immediate islands (including North Africa) but none of the offshore islands.

For those species occurring outside the range of BoA the basis is:

CMT -- Clements J. M. 2007. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, 6th Edition . Cornell University Press
Also the corrections and updates noted on the web (www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist) have been incorporated (corrections and updates dated 18 July 2007 and 8 October 2007). (In practice the main changes this 6th edition have put onto this checklist have been to remove many of the instances where CMT was inconsistent with others.) Lists Scientific and English names and a list of recognised races with very brief notes on Range.

The following other publications have also been researched and the differences between the preferred names and those names used in them are noted:

DFW -- Dowsett R.J. & Forbes-Watson A.D. 1993. Checklist of birds of the Afrotropical and Malagasy regions. Tauraco Press, Liège.
Lists Scientific, English and French names of species and includes a table noting countries in which recorded. There are a few additional notes, eg which forms are included, but these are not comprehensive. Covers Africa south of the Sahara Desert and includes Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros and Mascarenes. (It also includes an area of southern Arabia (primarily Yemen) which DFW consider as in the Afrotropical Region.)

HM – Dickinson E.C. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd edition. Christopher Helm, London.
Lists Scientific and English names and a list of recognised races. Provenance of all names is given together with some notes on synonyms etc and very brief notes on range. Updates from Howard & Moore website have been incorporated.

SAM – Monroe B.L. & Sibley C.G. 1993. A world checklist of birds. Yale University Press.
Lists Scientific and English names and, as for DFW, some additional notes (not comprehensive) are added as to forms included. An accompanying publication gives more details.

HBW – del Hoyo J., Elliott A. & Sagatal J. 1992-2006. Handbook of the Birds of the World. vols 1-12. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
The volumes published to date include all non-passerines and the passerines up to and including warblers and flycatchers. Lists Scientific, English and French names and a list of recognised races. Also maps and brief notes of range.

ZTP – Zimmerman D.A., Turner D.A. & Pearson D.J. 1996. Birds of Kenya and northern Tanzania. Christopher Helm, London.
Lists Scientific and English names and the recognised races which occur in its area.
Covers all of Kenya and northern Tanzania to the east of Lake Victoria.

BD -- Borrow N. & Demey R. 2001. Birds of western Africa. Christopher Helm, London.
Lists Scientific, English and French names and the recognised races which occur in its area. Covers West Africa south of the Sahara (Mauritania to Chad) and south to Central African Republic and Congo (not Democratic Republic of Congo, ex Zaire) and Cape Verde Islands.

ROB – Roberts’ list of the birds of southern Africa (list downloaded August 2006 from the Internet at Roberts Project , version dated April 2005) Lists Scientific, English (and Afrikaans) names. Covers all of southern Africa: Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique south of the Zambezi River and all to the south.

IOC -- Gill F & Wright M. 2006. Birds of the World: recommended English names. Christopher Helm, London.
Lists Scientific and English names with the latter the results of extensive discussions around the world.

BL -- BirdLife International checklist
The new BirdLife checklist (http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/downloads/ BirdLife_Checklist_Version_0.xls) has been noted and incorporated as necessary (as BL). This is noted as being preliminary but was considered worth incorporating because of the legal status of a ‘species’ in some places and BirdLife’s control over the Red List.

There have also been recent Field Guides for eastern, southern and all of Africa south of the Sahara:

SF -- Stevenson T. & Fanshawe J. 2002. Field guide to the birds of eastern Africa. T & AD Poyser, London.

SL -- Sinclair I., Hockey P. & Tarboton W. 2002. SASOL birds of southern Africa. 3rd edition. Struik, Cape Town.

SS -- Sinclair I. & Ryan P. 2003. Birds of Africa. A Complete Illustrated Field Guide to the Birds South of the Sahara. Struik, Cape Town.

(Note: names in these sources where they differ from the preferred are included here as needed because they are often used by birdwatchers in Africa, but they are not considered taxonomic publications and are therefore only added in brackets.)

There are also occasional references to other publications (eg British Ornithologists’ Union Checklists to Cape Verde Islands (Hazevoet C.J. 1995), and to St Helena (Rowlands B.W. et al. 1998).

Latest page update 8th January 2008