Although ornithology and birding have a relatively long and popular tradition in southern Africa, they have not been adequately harnessed as a window into the urgent problems of the day. The South African National Biodiversity Institute, SANBI (www.sanbi.org.za), started the Birds and Environmental Change Partnership to focus South Africa's bird research, monitoring and conservation more strongly on the impacts of environmental change drivers, especially climate and land use changes. The Partnership underwrites the citizen-science atlas and monitoring projects and long-term datasets that are highlighted here, facilitates Red Data assessment, and conducts focused research on climate change vulnerability and adaptation (www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za/docs/climate.html). Contact Phoebe Barnard at SANBI's Climate Change and BioAdaptation Division, p.barnard@sanbi.org.za.