Birds of Gauteng

Birds of Gauteng provides a comprehensive guide to the birds of Gauteng Province and surrounding areas. Although Gauteng is the most urbanised of South Africa’s provinces there remain many wonderful nature reserves, rivers, dams, mountainous areas such as the Magaliesberg and the multitude of parks and gardens with a rich variety of birdlife, that provide fantastic opportunities for bird watching.

In order to make bird identification simpler and this publication more user-friendly, especially for the novice birder, we have approached the categorisation of the birds in an unconventional way. The bird's habits, habitat preferences and the likelihood where the bird may be encountered has been used to assist in categorising the various birds into four distinct groups. To differentiate these four categories we have coloured the bird's name, and arranged them as follows:

• Birds of Prey / Raptors / Owls: e.g. Verreaux’s eagle
• Waterbirds and birds closely associated with water: e.g. Little grebe
• Birds mostly seen on or close to the ground: e.g. Long-tailed widowbird
• Birds mostly seen in trees and shrubs or on the wing: e.g. Red-faced mousebird

The book features:

• 421 bird species
• Reference Map of Gauteng including Nature Reserves
• Illustrated glossary and bird wing details