"The Birds of Africa is the first comprehensive handbook on the entire avifauna of the African continent. It covers breeding birds in full detail, with sections on range and status, description, field characters, voice, general habits (including migration), food, and breeding biology. Non-breeding visitors are covered more briefly, with emphasis on their status and behavior while in Africa. Color plates show all species in almost all plumages -- male, female, immature, and non-breeding. Beautifully executed, they combine "field guide" attention to detail and diagnostic features with the realism of natural poses. Line drawings illustrate behavioral and identification points in the text. Geographical ranges are shown in maps which distinguish breeding and non-breeding distributions and in many instances also show regional variations in abundance. References and a discography complete the volume."--Bloomsbury Publishing...