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Angola

Lilac-breasted Roller Coracias caudata ©Jens Eriksen http://www.sitecenter.dk/birds

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola is a country in south-central Africa bordering Namibia to the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, and Zambia to the east, and with a west coast along the Atlantic Ocean.

The exclave province Cabinda has a border with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola was a Portuguese colony from the 16th century to 1975. The country is the second-largest petroleum and diamond producer in sub-Saharan Africa, yet its people are among the continent's poorest.

According to the International Monetary Fund, more than $4 billion in oil receipts have disappeared from Angola's treasury in the 2000s. In August 2006, a peace deal was signed with a faction of the FLEC, a separatist guerrilla from the Cabinda exclave in the North, which is still active. About 65% of Angola's oil comes from that region.

At 481,321 square miles (1,246,700 km²), Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country (after Niger). It is comparable in size to Mali and is nearly twice the size of the US state of Texas, or five times the area of the United Kingdom.

Angola is bordered by Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west. The exclave of Cabinda also borders the Republic of the Congo to the north. Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the north-west of the country.

Angola's average temperature on the coast is 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 °C) in the winter and 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 °C) in the summer.

contributor

Wikipedia
(GNU Free Documentation License)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola

numbers

Number of bird species: 993

numbers

Number of endemics: 12
Grey-striped Francolin Francolinus griseostriatus Swierstra's Francolin Francolinus swierstrai Red-backed Mousebird Colius castanotus Red-crested Turaco Tauraco erythrolophus Braun’s Bush-Shrike Laniarius brauni Gabela Bush-Shrike Laniarius amboimensis Gabela Helmet-Shrike Prionops gabela Angola Slaty Flycatcher Melaenornis brunneus Gabela Akalat Sheppardia gabela Angola Cave-Chat Xenocopsychus ansorgei Pulitzer's Longbill Macrosphenus pulitzeri Montane Double-collared Sunbird Cinnyris ludovicensis

useful reading

Birds of Angola

WRJ Dean 2000 BOU - A monumental avifauna covering this hugely ornithologically neglected country. Angola is extremely bird-rich (over 900 species) and has a range of biomes and ecosystems that are almost unequalled in Africa. 2000. 444 pages, 16 pages of colour photographs, figures, diagrams and maps. ?50.00 http://www.bou.org.uk/pubchkll.html
ISBN: 0907446221
Buy this book from NHBS.com

Southern African Birdfinder

Where to find 1400 bird species in southern Africa and Madagascar Callan Cohen, Claire Spottiswoode and Jonathan Rossouw 456 pages, 80 col photos, 100 maps, pull-out route map. New Holland Publishers 2006
ISBN: 1868727254
Buy this book from NHBS.com

useful information

Proact

Coordinator: none (why not apply?) see http://www.proact-campaigns.net/coordinators
Members: None yet!
Join us at http://www.proact-campaigns.net/team

clubs

African Bird Club

http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/Angola/introduction.html
Angola has a bird list of more than nine hundred species but there has been little ornithological activity for some thirty years. Sadly, a long running war and political instability have impacted habitat and species adversely as well limiting opportunities for visiting birders. There is evidence of an improving situation and Birding Africa is running a flagship tour with the African Bird Club in 2005...

Birds Angola

http://www.birdsangola.org/
Birds Angola is a group of individuals and organisations that aim to support, promote and conduct information gathering, research and conservation of Angolan birds. Our main focus is the scientific publication of information on Angolan birds, at this stage concentrated primarily on descriptive studies, with a strong focus on priority taxa and areas for conservation...

Kissama Foundation

http://www.kissama.org/
The Kissama Foundation was formed in order to solicit support for its mission - to rehabilitate conservation areas and national parks, to reintroduce wildlife species that have dissappeared, to nurture back those that are on the brink of extinction such as the Giant Sable (our national symbol); and to give back to the people of Angola that which a war fuelled by foreign ideologies took away from them.

museums

Lubango Museum

http://www.birdsangola.org/lubangomuseum.htm

reserves

Quiçama National Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicama_National_Park
The Atlantic Ocean forms the Park's 120 km long western border, while the perennial Cuanza and Longa rivers constitute the northern and southern borders respectively. The eastern border consists of a belt of dense, tall thicket. Quiçama covers an area of roughly 9 960 square kilometres/1.2 million hectares.

trip reports

Travelling Birder
http://www.travellingbirder.com
The Travellingbirder.com birding trip report search engine guides you to 7,000+ birding trip reports on the Internet. You can search for trip reports from a specific country and time of year. Not all these reports are in English. So, if you can’t find the trip report you want on this Fatbirder page… give them a try!

2003 [October] - Callan Cohen, Claire Spottiswoode & Michael Mills - Western Angola

http://www.birdingafrica.com/africa_tours/trip_reports/tr_angola03our.htm
In October 2003 we visited Angola on a short, one-week exploratory trip, with the aim of adding to an ever-growing post-war knowledge of the Western Angola Endemic Bird Area. An invitation from Wings Over Africa, who organised our visit and hosted us at the wonderful Rio Longa Lodge, provided the perfect opportunity for this...

2004 [November] - Adam Riley

http://www.rockjumper.co.za/default.asp?id=1158
Rockjumper Birding Tours is indeed proud to have arranged and guided the first birding tour ever to have been undertaken in Angola. We can obviously boast that it was the most successful Angolan tour of all time! However, we did exceptionally well, finding all possible endemics on our route and observing many birds that very few birders have ever seen. One of our major highlights and achievements was that of finding two flocks of Angola Helmetshrikes, only ever seen by two birders, and we obtained the first sound recordings and photos of this mythical species...

2005 [December] - Nik Borrow

http://www.birdquest.co.uk/tripreports.cfm?trip=463
...At last birders are trickling into the country to gather up the ornithological gems that are scattered over this huge country. We undertook our first exploratory visit with the assistance of Pedro Vaz Pinto, the man behind the rediscovery of many of the ‘lost’ endemics (including recently the Giant Sable in Cangandala National Park unfortunately outside the scope of this tour) and during our visit we recorded 469 species of birds of which 458 were seen...

2005 [December] - Nik Borrow

tour operators

Birding Africa

http://www.birdingafrica.com/africa_tours/birdingtourangola.htm
Gabela! The name epitomises the excitement of birding in Angola, and the frustration that 27 years of civil war has previously prevented access to the region. With its own akalat, bush-shrike and helmet-shrike, Gabela lies at the centre of the Angolan scarp forest...

Birdquest

http://www.birdquest.co.uk/holidaysByRegion.cfm?holiday=881
Amazingly enough, one of the African countries that seemed just a few years ago to be a veritable ‘no go’ area was Angola. Torn apart by civil war since its independence from Portugal in 1975, a peace accord was finally reached in 1992, although fighting continued up until as recently as 2002 when a final cease-fire was announced after the death of the insurgent leader Jonas Savimbi. For birders, the growing stability of the country means that a wealth of mouth-watering specialities is now once more within reach...

Angola reveals some of its bird secrets...

http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2005/04/angola.html
A six-day expedition visited northern Angola at the end of January 2005 to look for three little-known species: the Orange-breasted Bush-shrike Laniarius brauni is only known from this region and had not been seen since 1957; the White-headed Robin-chat Cossypha heinrichi, found only in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, was also last seen in 1957; and the Black-tailed Cisticola Cisticola melanurus, also restricted to Angola and the DRC, was last seen in 1972...