Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea
If Birds of the Horn of Africa is a perfect example of what a field guide should look
like, then the superb Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea by John Ash and John Aitkins, which follows on from an earlier work by Ash and Miskell, The Birds of Somalia, fulfills the same role for atlases.
The maps are the heart of any atlas, and the ones included in this book are clearly laid out with a simple key that makes them easy to follow and draws on many years of field work by the authors and others. But this tome is more than just a collection of distribution maps.
The names of many early collectors and ornithologists pepper the avifauna of this region, and Caroline Ash’s overview of the historical quest for birds in the area makes for enthralling reading. The subsequent accounts of the region’s hydrography, geology, vegetation, climate, habitats, history and current status of conservation, migration and breeding seasons are all well written and extremely readable. These are followed by an excellent series of photographs by Hadoram Shirahai showing 29 of the 32 listed endemics – guaranteed to get the saliva of any world birder flowing!
A series of appendices cover the region’s Important Bird Areas (IBAs), threatened and near-threatened species, and range- and biome-restricted species. These are followed by an account of ringing in the region, a gazetteer of localities and a very comprehensive bibliography.
In short, this work tells you just about everything you ever wanted to know about the birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea, except how to identify them – which is where the field guide comes in.
Tech spec
• Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea by John Ash and John Atkins (Christopher Helm, London, 2009).
• 456 pages, 16 pages of colour photographs and maps.
• ISBN 9781408109793. Hbk, £50.
Available from Birdwatch bookshop
First published in Birdwatch 205:53 (July 2009)