Organisation: African Bird Club http://www.africanbirdclub.org

Who are we? The African Bird Club is a UK registered charity formed in 1992 for people with a common interest in African ornithology. The Club covers the following geographic region: Continental Africa; Indian Ocean islands west of 80° east, e.g. Madagascar, Mascarene islands and Socotra; Atlantic Ocean on or east of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, e.g. Tristan de Cunha group, Azores and Canaries.

Aims of the Club: to provide a worldwide focus for African ornithology; to raise money to support conservation projects in Africa through the conservation fund; to encourage an interest in the conservation of the birds of the region; to liaise with and promote the work of existing regional societies; to publish a twice-yearly colour bulletin; to encourage observers to visit lesser known areas of the region, and search for and study globally threatened and near-threatened species.

Membership: there are over 1,200 members of the Club at present. The benefits of membership are: free copies of the bulletin; an information service to help with trips, information about species, places and photographic identification; an active e-mail distribution group; a good selection of ABC clothing, books and trip reports are available for purchase along with past issues of bulletins. Sales proceeds go straight to supporting conservation projects in Africa.

Publications: The bulletin of the Club is produced in March and August and is sent to all members. The content is very varied but always includes a roundup of the latest birding and conservation news from Africa, Club news, recent sightings as well as major feature articles on birding, identification, conservation, research and guides to top birding sites in Africa. The 2 high quality colour bulletins in 2006 contained a total of 240 pages with 34 feature articles.

Conservation: The Club’s conservation programme supports small to medium sized conservation projects in Africa. Since it began in 1996, it has supported a wide variety of projects including training courses, research into threatened species and promotion and awareness of conservation issues in Africa. In 2006, awards were approved to the value of over £11,000 and this brought the total funds made available for conservation projects to over £52,000 since the beginning of the programme.

Website: The Club has an extensive and growing website at http://www.africanbirdclub.org with over 1,000 pages of information which includes country details, checklists, a photographic database with over 7,000 images and an online shop.

Written by John Caddick, 2007.

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