Birds of the Klein Karoo

The gift of free time during the enforced isolation to evade COVID-19 has produced a fully-revised checklist of the birds from the Klein Karoo. This checklist can be downloaded, printed, and carried with you during your next safari, birding foray, or raucous road-trip into the Klein Karoo. This checklist is updated from Martin’s 2005 Birds Recorded in the Klein Karoo, 2nd Edition, and expanded from 238 species with additional 66 species recorded through open-access databases like eBird and iNaturalist. The 307 species in this checklist are confirmed location-based sightings, and is not a checklist generated on “expected” or “hypothetical” occurrences.  Species with an asterisk have been observed and recorded within in the Klein Karoo Biosphere Reserves – over 185 species!  Those birds with an (R) after their name are “rare” species to the Klein Karoo. Such examples can be an individual blown far from their normal habitats, as with the Red-Billed Tropicbird found in Calitzdorp, those species once recorded as breeding in the area but have not been seen in many decades, as with Wahlberg’s Eagle. Some may be vagrants veering off-course during migration, as with the Amur Falcon, or species common in areas adjacent to the Klein Karoo, but rarely seen in the region, as with the White Stork. Some recent records may indicate a range extension of a species. Introduced birds – and fortunately these are few – have an (I). Please note any new records in eBird and iNaturalist, or contact us.

Cite this checklist as: Long, D.J. (2020) Birds of the Klein Karoo, a revised checklist of known species, Klein Karoo Biosphere Reserves, 3pp.

Click to access klein-karoo-bird-checklist-2020-1klein-karoo-bird-checklist-2020-1.pdf