Wildlife of Southern Africa (Princeton Pocket Guides)

This is a good introduction for a safari trip to Africa. Nice photos and descriptions of animals.A good photography primer as well - I got a new camera before a recent trip to get better zoom capability.Also a discussion about etiquette while on safari.

I have many of the more detailed animal books and guides, but because of their size and weight leave them at home as reference material. This book, owing to both its compact size and low weight, is ideal as a practical take-along guide. It's likely to contain just about everything you'll see on safari. Animals are pictured and, alongside, text is given describing the animal. Perfect for my purposes.

I bought three South Africa wildlife books at the same time. What I like about “Wildlife of Southern Africa” is its size - it easily fits in a pants pocket and will be great in the field. Secondly, it includes both birds and mammals, plus a variety of other animals. I am sure it is not comprehensive, but may be good enough for a few weeks in South Africa. It includes good color photographs which is not my preference, at least for birds as I find drawings much more informative. What I don't like is its tight binding which makes it spring shut too easily.I find “Birds of Southern Africa” to be a much better bird book, nicely illustrated (my preference over photos), great range maps, and plenty of identification details. It is definitely my choice as a bird reference book, though I may not carry it in the field unless I put it in a backpack. It will be a good reference book for identifying my photos when I have time away from the field.I also purchased “National Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife” for two reasons: 1. I always like the NAS book series and already own almost the complete set, and 2. I know one of the authors. An advantage or a disadvantage depending on your point of view is that it covers all of Africa. If I only visit South Africa, the book contains too many species that I will not see. On the other hand, it is a good reference for the whole continent. I like the flexible binding on the NAS books, photos are good, but again my preference is for drawings when it comes to birds. The book covers 850 species which I’m sure is far short of being comprehensive. Since I’m always concerned about baggage weight limits when traveling by air, this one of the three is the most likely I’ll keep at home.

This guide had all of the mammals, all of the butterflies, and close to all of the birds we saw in two weeks in S. Africa and Botswana. When a bird was not in the guide, we could figure out what family it was in. Not enough for a trip dedicated to birding, but enough info for the rest of us.

Lots of great information.

This small guide went with me everywhere for the two weeks I was in South Africa. The Afrikaans names were great for my SA friends to quickly look up birds and animals. I had a bigger bird book that I realized I could leave behind. I wrote in it the date and location I spotted each animal or the second spotting. It was amazing to see it fill up. I had done some studying before we left and wish I had done more as the bird types are so very different. I found the organization to be very logical and easy to use.

Its a good quality book of South African animals. But it's mostly birds. 170 pages of birds, actually, which is most of the book. Only 20 pages for antelopes. 2 pages of snakes. I realize there are far more species of birds than other animals there, but it still feels very disproportionate. The font size is tiny. I can't read it without my glasses. Using this in the field, in a bouncing Safari vehicle, would be impossible for me. Besides having a section for each animal class, it's not immediately clear how the animalsmare grouped and organized. It is compact and tightly bound, also making it difficult to flip through.

An excellent book for those contemplating an African Safari. It gives one a complete picture of what to expect and how to look after your gear in what are often harsh conditions. This book is complemented throughout by some very nice colour photos as well as much information on camera technique.Dust, rain, heat,equipment weight are all covered together with useful hints for photographing moving animals, birds, retiles & insects.It is a handy reference to store on iPads Kindle App when travelling.

About half of the book is abou birds, which is more than we needed/expected. We took it on a roadtrip in Namibia and Botswana and we’re able to identify the animals we saw. There are also useful photography tips (for a beginner I think). The size is also handy while traveling. Could be a bit lighter.

Min bok kom inte hem till mig som utlovats. Utan sändes till en Ica affär. Och jag har ingen möjlighet att hämta boken.

Muy interesante y completo aunque con descripciones quizá algo escuetas y sin demasiada información adicional. Bueno para nivel básico y conocimiento general, pero no para profundizar

Thanks

The book looks OK & gives a lot of information,there is quite a big bird section the main critisism is that the sections are NOT compartmentalised & finding individual species is hard, (index is not as other Collins guides with quick find colour coded reference on page edge).other sections include Mammals, which again is NOT compartmentalised & species are intermingled with each other, Sea life, Amphibians Reptiles & Insects, the last 4 sections are only a couple of pages each & the species are easy to find