Birds of
Greater Southern Africa
Authors
Keith Barnes has always had a passion for wildlife, but was particularly obsessed with birds and the southern third of the African continent. Growing up on the outskirts of Roodepoort when it got too hot to bird, he flipped rocks to find scorpions and forged rivers above waterfalls to catch dragonfly larvae. Professionally, he started life as an ornithologist working at the Avian Demography Unit (now the Animal Demography Unit) at the University of Cape Town. Coordinating and editing the inaugural Important Bird Areas of Southern Africa (1998) and Red Data Book (2000) projects were his first serious publications. A PhD on lark taxonomy at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute was as far as his academic ambitions would extend, as his wanderlust took hold, and he segwayed into bird- and nature-based tourism as an owner of Tropical Birding and Capturing Nature tours. The COVID years gave Keith the travel sabbatical he needed to really focus on creating the Birds of Greater Southern Africa, and Habitats of Africa books, along with collaborators. He is also co-author of Birding Ethiopia and Wild Rwanda published by Lynx Edicions, and Animals of Kruger, Birds of Kruger, and Wildlife of Madagascar with Princeton University Press. Keith is a travel addict and wildlife nerd, his wife Yi-fang graciously indulges his OCD. Joshua, their son, fledged last year and is currently wintering somewhere in Australia, a tracking device is needed to pin-point his exact location.
Terry Stevenson has lived in Kenya since 1977. He is one of Africa’s foremost bird tour guides, leading tours throughout Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Privately he has travelled extensively, birding in north and south America, Europe, Asia, Australia and to Antarctica. Together with John Fanshawe and Andy Roberts, Terry holds the World Big Day record for the number of birds seen in 24 hours – 330 species on 30 November 1986 – a record that still stands today! He is a co-author of the acclaimed Birds of East Africa, and is member of the East African Rarities Committee.
John Fanshawe is an author and environmentalist. He has worked on bird and biodiversity conservation in East Africa since 1981, primarily for the global partnership, BirdLife International. After research on the birds of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in coastal Kenya, he worked on conservation and development projects there, and went on to co-ordinate BirdLife’s global policy and advocacy programmes. With a particular interest in the role of the arts in the environment movement, he co-founded the group New Networks for Nature in 2009, and curates a programme of arts and science collaborations for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.
Artists
John Gale was brought up in Berkshire. Here he pursued his passion for natural history, with a special interest in birds and insects. John was always very keen on art, but his studies focused on the sciences and consequently he studied veterinary science at Liverpool University. After leaving university John started to focus on his art again and by chance, while travelling in Borneo, landed himself a small illustration project painting the birds of Mount Kinabalu. This led onto other projects including ‘Field guide to the birds of East Africa’, a project that took five and half years to complete. In 1992 he won the prestigious ‘Bird illustrator of the year’ award (British Birds) and in 2002 he won the Swarovski ‘Bird artist of the year’ title. In 2009 he won the frozen plant category of the BBC wildlife magazine ‘Artist of the year’. John is always keen to see and study as many of the birds he illustrates and paints as possible and consequently has spent a lot of time researching birds in the field. He has travelled extensively in South East Asia, Borneo, Africa, Madagascar and the Middle East. John first visited Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in 2002 when he went to Antarctica from Cape Town, onboard the SA Agulhas, via Prince Edward and Marion Islands. This was a truly remarkable trip seeing huge icebergs, high seas and many seabirds including albatrosses, petrels and penguins. Since then he has frequently visited the region, working on cruise ships as ornithologist, lecturer and artist in residence.
Brian Small started drawing birds as a young boy as a means of learning about them, these were typically simple but gave an insight into the way birds looked and behaved. Sketchbooks became filled as I got older and I began to send drawings to British Birds and Birding World magazines, culminating in being asked by Richard Porter to help illustrate the Birds of the Middle East. He continued sketching, but illustratively went on to paint 140 plates for Birds of East Africa, Birds of the Horn of Africa, and Birds of Africa: Madagascar & Indian Ocean Islands. He also worked on BWP Concise, Reed & Bush Warblers of the World and was lucky enough to get work on the last volumes of Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), which included extinct species and also the Galapagos finches – where handling specimens collected by Darwin at the Museum of Natural History was a real highlight! Though his technique has changed over the years, he still works hard on the layout and design of plates (as well as accuracy), trying to create something visually attractive and not just ‘an illustration’.
Faansie Peacock likes to describe himself as a professional birder. Making a living by studying birds full-time is not as lucrative as you may think. As such, he’s had to add a number of sub-disciplines to his portfolio, as you can see below. Faansie is one of southern Africa’s best known birders and most talented bird artists. He has authored or co-authored six books on birds, including Pipits of Southern Africa (2006), The Chamberlain Guide to Birding Gauteng (2008), the acclaimed Chamberlain’s LBJs (2012) and most recently Chamberlain’s WADERS. He hints that there are many more to come. As his name implies, Peacock lives and breathes birds. For their first date, he took his high school sweetheart to see the elusive Red-chested Flufftail. A mosquito-infested swamp seems like a debatable location to initiate a courtship ritual, but he insists that it was the perfect way to introduce his girlfriend to the joys of birding. “I knew my strategy had worked a few years later when Ronel, in a feather-festooned wedding dress, showed me a Dusky Lark strolling about the legs of the guests at our wedding reception” he confirms. Today Ronél is an equally enthusiastic birder and has accompanied Faansie on birding expeditions to Madagascar, Zanzibar, Spain, Thailand and Australia, in addition to hundreds of trips throughout Southern Africa.