Zimbabwe is ‘new’ to the second Southern African Bird Atlas Project – SABAP2 – local birders only having started atlassing in early 2013. This is a fun way to get involved and have your birding count for conservation, as many will remember from SABAP1! SABAP2 has been developed by the Animal Demography Unit (ADU) of the University of Cape Town. To find out what it is all about follow the link above and see what has been achieved in the region so far. Follow local news on our Facebook page Sabap2 Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has 4883 pentads to cover. Each red box you see above is a pentad. A pentad being a ‘square’ covering 5’ latitude by 5’ longitude, and as of early October 2013 we had covered 207 pentads… or 4.2% of the country.

Visit the ADU website above and explore southern African pentads, individual species maps and lists and more. See the links below on this page for our PDF manuals on how to get started.

You may find Google Earth helpful for pinpointing pentads in Zimbabwe. Once you have Google Earth installed download the Zimbabwe pentad Google Earth overlay as a plug-in. When you click on the file Google Earth will open and automatically display the overlay with the files in your temporary places. Save it in "my places" and every time you open Google Earth, Zimbabwe's pentads will be available to you. For more information, please contact Sabap2zim@gmail.com.