How to get a good bird’s eye view:

There are two elements essential to the enjoyment of any African birding safari – plenty of birds, and excellent guiding.  When asked by guests, what is needed for birding, a simple answer is a good pair of binoculars, a sun hat and a notebook if required.

More than anything you will need a good pair of bins / binos or for the uninitiated binoculars, as well as a bird field guide specific to your safari area.  Every naturalist using binoculars has an opinion on magnification, and there is never a shortage of advice as to what constitutes the best magnification for safari goers and birding.  Taken from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology here are 6 steps to choosing the correct binoculars

• For almost any bird that crosses your path, a good pair of binoculars will show you fine details, make colours pop out of shadows, and improve your chance of identifying what you’ve seen. For most bird watchers, binoculars soon become almost an extension of their bodies.


• Decide on your price range. Top-of-the-line binoculars give you a pristine image in a comfortable, durable package. Lower price ranges also offer some great options, thanks to technological advances in the last decade.


• Pick a magnification. Deciding between 8x and 10x binoculars is a personal choice. In general 10x are better at distance birding. But it usually also means a narrower field of view, a slightly darker image in low light, and more noticeable hand-shake. An 8x gives you a smaller image that’s wider, brighter, and easier for finding and following birds. Test a lot of models. No two birders look through binoculars exactly the same way. Size of hands, shape of face, how you focus, how you carry the bins when you’re not using them—all matter. So pick up as many pairs as you can to get a feel for what suits you.


• Look for bright, crisp, true colour. Image quality has an overriding importance. How bright are the bins? How sharp? How true are the colours? How well do they resolve details in a backlit image? Most optics stores are better lit than your average forest—find somewhere dark to compare low-light performance. In our ratings, pay special attention to the Clarity/Crispness score to decide on image quality. Note that because of poor image quality, we don’t recommend any compact-style binoculars with objective lenses smaller than about 30 mm.


• Check the eye relief. Most binoculars have eyecups that retract to accommodate eyeglass wearers or extend to provide shading for those without. Look for durable, multi-adjustable eyecups. If you wear glasses, adjust the eyecups to their minimum position and make sure there’s enough eye relief—you shouldn’t see black rings around the image.

Review additional features and warranties. Pay attention to field of view and close focus, two measures that affect how much you’ll see. Also pay attention to durability, waterproofing, and warranty—many major optics companies now offer excellent warranties.

Recommended Birding books:

• Birds of Southern Africa by Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey, and Warwick Tarboton:  This is a truly excellent bird identification guide. The illustrations are on par with the great Sibley guide of North America and they depict a range of plumage variations (such as differences in gender, age, or region.) This comprehensive list includes each of the 900 plus species which occur in Southern Africa.


• Collins Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa:  The Collins Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa is an excellent book if you are visiting any of the countries in this this spectacular birding region, including Kenya and Tanzania.


• Newman’s Birds of Southern Africa:  The eighth edition of this popular Southern African birding book has been updated to incorporate the information obtained since the previous edition relating to the birds of the region. 


• Sasol Birds of Southern Africa:  The book features an advanced technique for improved field identification, and an extensive taxonomy featuring corrected misidentifications and recorded species splits that have occurred since the previous edition.


• Birds of East Africa is the classic, indispensable field guide by Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe covering the birds of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.


• Beat about the Bush: This African birding book by Trevor Carnaby is the latest in the excellent ‘Beat About The Bush’ series in which the most common and interesting questions about the bush are answered, the kind of questions that a safari guide is often asked.