Bird Sounds: Reviews

Southern African Bird Sounds (Guy Gibbon) (Available on Tapes or CD) 888 or 900 species.

Bird Calls of the Kruger National Park (SABC & Transvaal Museum - Volume 1) 99 Species

Recognizing Bird Calls in your Garden in Southern Africa (Len Gillard) 97 species 

This collection of recordings  has over 900 species (888 or in the case of the earlier edition of tapes - still available in some shops). The 900 species tapes and the subsequent CD's are each updated, but all three collections nevertherless cover the vast majority of sound likely to be heard by a normal birder in the Southern African region. This is the most comprehensive set available and for most species most of the typical calls are included. The CD calls are organised into 15 tracks on each CD with 10 calls per track. This does make for easier location than with the tapes, although having to fast-forward and fast-backward to find a specific call is still a minor irritation.  More irritating is the human voice announcing each call, which is necessary because each species does not have its own track.

Overall the quality of the recordings is good, with sound quality on the CD calls being noticeably clearer and sharper.  One of these sets is an indispensable tool to the birder in Southern Africa and considering the price for overseas visitors - should be compulsory trip equipment for birders visiting Southern Africa!  To order online click here !

This CD is quite different from the first reviewed in that it covers the species most commonly heard in the Kruger National Park area. Given that the Kruger Park is home to over 400 species this volume covers only a selection of the most commonly heard and vocal species. Nevertherless if you do not already know the birdcalls in the area, this CD will serve as an adequate sound guide to the Kruger National Park, and indeed to many other bushveld areas of Southern Africa. The CD comes with a handy booklet with a brief description of the birds covered and their calls.

This CD's greatest advantage is its arrangement. Each species has its own track, and human voice announcements are absent. This makes listening more pleasant and the learning of calls far easier.  This is a CD you would be happy to put on in the background while you work or do some gardening. The best way to use it, is to play the tracks in random order, referring to the index list only when you need some help.

For this reason alone, I would recommend this CD to anyone who wants to polish  up their knowledge of birdcalls - whether you already own a more comprehensive sound collection or not !

As with the previous CD this is an excellent supplement to the more comprehensive offering from Guy Gibbon. Would I buy both this one and the Kruger Park CD?  I'm not sure. With about 50 % of species common to both CD's, few birders could justify having both. On the other hand, each CD has it's own unique set of recordings so all the calls are different. In some cases the calls vary somewhat regionally and listening to both gives one a sense of the variety of calls. In general this CD has a greater range of typical sounds for each species than the Kruger Park CD and it is my impression that the quality of calls on the Garden Birds CD is marginally better.