Page 27 - Fourways Gardens December20

Lifestyle

evolution oF BirD BookS 1936 - 2020

B y Ja M es c la R ke and Ma R y B R o adley

The Larger Illustrated Pages from South Africa’s first bird spotters’ guide of 1936 (above), compared with the just-launched guide (below)

Guide to Birds of
Southern Africa – a

revolutionary new
bird book

n my day, (as people over 60 tend to say),
we birders would walk for hours carrying
heavy binoculars and an equally heavy
Ibird book to identify different birds.

For years, I carried the 871-page Roberts’
Birds of South Africa. If, on an outing, we
found ourselves differing over a bird’s
identification, we’d start frantically rifling
through our field guides. Frantically? Well,
after the bird had flown, somebody might
well have asked about the colour of its legs.

“Red!” somebody would assert. the Zambezi. Now that eight countries are I became involved in the birding world
“Black, definitely!” somebody else would say. involved and new species are being spotted when somebody gave me a slim cloth-
“Legs?” I might say. creeping in from Central Africa or from the bound book, First Guide to South African
sea, our region now lists almost 1 000 birds. Birds by Leonard Gill, one-time director
Bird books took a battering. This led to of the South African Museum. It was first
heavier gauge paper being used and Birding dynamics in general have become published in 1936 – a bold attempt at
stronger covers so that instead of field more fascinating and are being noted as being a field guide. The illustrations look
guides becoming lighter, the opposite was indicators in various fields of scientific quaint nowadays although, as a beginner,
happening. importance such as climate change and I found them fine. Within the space of a
crop management. The growing number of single page, Gill managed to squeeze 30
When I started birding, there were just over birders now forms an auxiliary arm to the species as diverse as the hamerkop, the
900 species in our region that stretched to science of ornithology. herons, ibises, ducks and geese.

Fourways Gardens • 25 • December 2020