animals book
 

We are a Spanish family (located in Barcelona /Spain). We are four, the couple and our two sons of 26 and 21 years old.

We are planning our Summer holidays for next year and we have taken the decision to spend our holidays in South Africa.

We invest a lot of time in this forum reading and learning about the country, places to visit, hotels, restaurants, Thank you to the fodorites for your reports and suggestions that help us a lot.

Due that we will visit during 5 days the Kruger Nat. Park we are looking for a book to help us in order to identify the different animals. I read in this board some coments about that but unfortunately i am not able to find it again.

May be some of you remenber me the name of the book . Your suggestions will be wellcome

Thanks in advance

Josep Maria

Richard Estes' Safari Companion is good.

I also like the slim book on identifying tracks/ spoor but I can't find it on my bookshelf and can't remember the name. If I can find it I'll let you know.

I just got "African Safari Journal" by Mark W. Nolting. Drawings of animals, birds, reptiles, trees, spoor. Also has maps, translations of simple phrases, temperatures, tips etc. Also has a checklist for checking off the things you see and pages to write a journal. Got it at Amazon.com, don't know if they have it in Spain though.

Hi Josep Maria,

The Safari Companion is an excellent book for understanding animal behaviour – I’d say it’s the best if it wasn’t because I haven’t read that many – but it’s not the best for identification as there are only black and white drawings. Collins Guide to African Wildlife has lots of photos of mammals, birds and reptiles – and Richard D. Estes is involved in it as well. The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals by Jonathan Kingdon has colour drawings that I’d say are better – more typical – than photos, though it’s as heavy as the Collins guide. Now there is a Kingdon Pocket guide to African Mammals. It should be less heavy and combined with the lightweight, but identification packed A Photographic Guide to Southern African Birds by Ian Sinclair – I’ve actually only seen the East African version by Dave Richards, but they should be similar – I think they’ll give you maximum identification per gram. There are “Photographic Guides” to reptiles as well. It’s unlikely you’ll find these books in Spain, but with a computer and a Visa card anything is possible.

I’ve only once – years before my first trip to Africa - seen a field guide to African wildlife in Spanish. It was in a bookcase in the furniture department of El Corte Inglés in Puerto Banús and, if I remember right, the title was simply “Fauna Africana”. I asked for the price, but was told it was an ornament and not for sale. How I wish I’d insisted! It’s impossible to find on the Internet. I use “Enciclopedia de los animales” from “ Círculo de lectores” though if I took it with me it would exceed the weight limit for domestic flights by itself.

Very good point Nyamera makes there - some books are definitely better in helping make the identification and others are far better in terms of learning more about the animal/ bird's behaviour, habitat and so on...

We took a couple of different books which worked well for us.