List of birds of South Africa

This article is about the list of birds from the country of South Africa. For the list of birds from the region of Southern Africa, see List of birds of Southern Africa.

The blue crane is the national bird of South Africa.

South Africa is a large country, ranked 25th by size in the world, and is situated in the temperate latitudes and subtropics. Due to a range of climate types present, a patchwork of unique habitat types occur, which contribute to its biodiversity and level of endemism. This list incorporates the mainland and nearshore islands and waters only. The submerged though ecologically important Agulhas Bank is for most part inside its territorial waters. Offshore, South Africa's territory includes the Prince Edward Islands in the Subantarctic Indian Ocean.

This list's taxonomic treatment (designation and sequence of orders, families and species) and nomenclature (English and scientific names) are those of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, 2022 edition, except that South African spelling is used.[1] Taxonomic changes are on-going. As more research is gathered from studies of distribution, behaviour and DNA, the order and number of families and species may change. Furthermore, different approaches to ornithological nomenclature have led to concurrent systems of classification (see Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy and IOU taxonomy).

Unless otherwise noted, the list is that of BirdLife South Africa (BLSA).[2] Notes in the status column are also from this source. Notes of population status, such as "endangered", refer to the worldwide population, not the South African part of it except for endemics. Unless otherwise noted in the "status" column, the species is a resident or regularly-occurring migrant.

  • "Vagrant" means the species rarely or accidentally occurs in South Africa.
  • "Endemic" means the species is found only in South Africa.
  • "SLE endemic" means the species is found only in South Africa and the Kingdoms of Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa and Eswatini nearly so.

This list contains 879 species according to the Clements taxonomy. The BLSA list includes additional entries as species which Clements considers subspecies; some of them are noted. According to BLSA, 18 species are endemic, 20 are SLE endemic, and 11 have been introduced by humans. Clements describes only 15 as endemic and 14 as SLE endemic.

  1. ^ Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/updateindex/october-2022/ Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  2. ^ "BirdLife South Africa Checklist of Birds in South Africa 2020". 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2020.