Welcome to the SASOL Bird e-Guide

The SASOL Bird e-Guide is in internet guide to the common birds of South Africa. It aims to provide a free and accessible guide to identifying the most common birds found in and around the major urban areas of South Africa. This internet guide is based on the best-selling Sasol Birds of Southern Africa, authored by Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey and Warwick Tarboton. The images are those used in Sasol, which were painted by Peter Hayman and Norman Arlott.

At present, the guide covers 200 of the most common species, found in the urban areas. The main focus is on the major centres of Johannesburg/Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London and Kimberley/Bloemfontein.

The groups page consists of groups of similar or related birds, and is the best starting point if you do not have an idea what the bird you are looking at might be. If you take note of one or two features of a bird, you can also use the ID wizard, which quickly narrows your search down, using any feature of a bird you may have noticed.

If you are new to the exciting hobby of birding, take a look at our step by step guide to identifying birds. To learn more about some of the terminology, used in bird identification, it may also be useful to look at the bird anatomy pages.

To help you identify the next bird you see, it may be a good idea to print out the Bird Identification template, which provides a easy to use structure to enable you to identify any bird you see.

We welcome any feedback and comments you may have on this fieldguide. To contribute, please use this feedback form.

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