Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE FRSE FZS FLS was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England.
The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), now part of BirdLife Australia, was founded in 1901 to promote the study and conservation of the native bird species of Australia and adjacent regions. This makes it Australia's oldest national birding association. It was also Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. In 1996 it adopted the trading name of Birds Australia for most public purposes, while retaining its original name for legal purposes and as the publisher of its journal the Emu. In 2012 it merged with Bird Observation & Conservation Australia to form BirdLife Australia.
Emu, subtitled Austral Ornithology, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of BirdLife Australia. The journal was established in 1901 and is the oldest ornithological journal published in Australia. The current editor-in-chief is Kate Buchanan. The journal was published quarterly for the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union in print and online by CSIRO Publishing until 2016. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2012 impact factor of 1.895, ranking it 4th out of 22 journals in the category "Ornithology".
Stephen Marchant, AM (1912–2003) was born in Shropshire, studied geology at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and worked in the oil exploration business in many countries, using the opportunities arising from his postings to study birdlife around the world. He wrote classic papers on the birds of the Red Sea, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Indonesia, Borneo, Ecuador and Iraq. In 1963 he migrated to Australia where he joined the Bureau of Mineral Resources in Canberra.
John Casimir Zichy Woinarski is an Australian ornithologist. He was awarded the 2001 Eureka Prize for Biodiversity Research. In the same year he was the recipient of the D. L. Serventy Medal, awarded by the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union for outstanding published work on birds in the Australasian region.
Henry Luke White was a wealthy grazier, and a keen philatelist, book collector, amateur ornithologist and oölogist of Scone, New South Wales, Australia.
Roy Percy Cooper (1907-1976) was an Australian accountant and amateur ornithologist. He was a Council member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), serving as President 1960-1961, and Editor of the Emu 1960-1962. He was also President of the Bird Observers Club 1954-1955 and editor of its journal, the Australian Bird Watcher 1959-1976. Books he wrote include:
Alan John "Jock" Marshall was an Australian writer, academic and ornithologist.
Herbert Thomas Condon was an Australian museum curator and ornithologist. He was born in Melbourne and attended the University of Adelaide. In 1929, Condon joined the scientific staff of the South Australian Museum; he was promoted to Assistant in Zoology in 1935, and became Curator of Birds and Reptiles in 1938. He kept this position for the decades through to 1976, broken only by a period of war service with the RAAF.
John Warham was an Australian and New Zealand photographer and ornithologist notable for his research on seabirds, especially petrels.
Dr Oliver Michael Griffiths Newman is an Australian metallurgist, administrator and amateur ornithologist who has worked for many years with Pasminco EZ Ltd in Tasmania and Newcastle, New South Wales. In Tasmania he was involved with studies on waders, especially the breeding biology of pied oystercatchers. He became a member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in 1968. He was regional organizer for the RAOU's Atlas of Australian Birds project 1977-1981. He served on the RAOU Council 1982-1988, and again from 1999, including chairing the Research Committee. He was elected a Fellow of the RAOU in 2003.
The South Australian Ornithological Association (SAOA), also known as Birds SA, is an Australian birding organisation based in Adelaide, South Australia. The SAOA publishes a journal, the South Australian Ornithologist as well as the Birds SA Newsletter "the Birder". It holds regular monthly meetings and conducts field trips for members. Its is also involved in many conservation projects throughout South Australia to help protect local bird species and their habitats.
The Adelaide Ornithologists' Club (AOC) was founded by Alan Lendon, a leading surgeon and prominent aviculturist, in 1960, as a breakaway group from the South Australian Ornithological Association, with John Neil McGilp as its first President. It followed dissension within the SAOA about the live bird export trade, in which the Adelaide Zoo was a leading player and Lendon a member of the Zoo Council. The AOC was formed with the explicit aim of promoting the study of birds. The pattern established in the early years and still maintained is that the club has an evening meeting and a Sunday outing each month except for December and January. Meetings typically include an address on a subject of relevance to ornithology, a section called bird notes devoted to recent sightings of interest, and "bird of the month", a section presented by a club member and offering a brief view of a particular bird species or bird family. Sunday outings visit local bird watching spots for identification in the field. Once a year there is a Spring Excursion for a week to an area further afield. Each year the club produces a magazine entitled "Bird Talk" with summaries of the outings and other articles about birds. The club welcomes new members. Its web site's URL is www.adelaideornithologists.com.
Warren Billingsley Hitchcock was an Australian field biologist and ornithologist. He was born at Ashfield, New South Wales and educated in Adelaide, South Australia. During the Second World War he served in the CMF and AIF in the Northern Territory of Australia as well as in New Guinea and New Britain.
Michael Stanley Reid Sharland (1899–1987) was an Australian journalist, photographer, author and amateur ornithologist. He was born, and spent most of his life, in Tasmania, though he also lived and worked in Sydney, Melbourne and London.
The NSW Field Ornithologists Club, also known as Birding NSW, was founded on 21 July 1970 when activities associated with the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in New South Wales ceased following drastic reform within the RAOU in the late 1960s which abolished all its branches. Birding NSW publishes a bi-monthly newsletter and holds regular meetings in Sydney and Tuggerah as well as regular field excursions and campouts. The logo of Birding NSW is the azure kingfisher.
Captain Samuel Albert White was a wealthy Australian racehorse owner, soldier, explorer, conservationist and amateur ornithologist. He was born in Fulham, South Australia and eventually died there. He fought in the South African War 1900–1903, reaching the rank of captain, which title he continued to use throughout his life. He made several private ornithological collecting expeditions across remote areas of Australia, to Alice Springs (1913), Musgrave and Everard Ranges (1914), Cooper Creek (1916), Nullarbor Plain (1917-1918), Finke River (1921), and Adelaide to Darwin and return (1922), on behalf of Gregory Mathews.
The white-breasted robin is a passerine bird in the Australasian robin family Petroicidae and is the only species placed in the genus Quoyornis. It is endemic to southwestern Australia. Unlike many other Australian robins, it lacks bright colours in its plumage, being a predominantly greyish bird with white underparts. Like other closely related Australasian robins, it is a cooperative breeder. It is sedentary, with pairs or small groups maintaining territories.
BirdLife Australia is the trading name of a company limited by guarantee formed through the merger of two Australian non-government conservation organisations, Bird Observation and Conservation Australia (BOCA) and Birds Australia. A constitution was drafted in May 2011 for BirdLife Australia, which became operational on 1 January 2012. Their respective magazines, the Bird Observer and Wingspan were succeeded by Australian Birdlife.
The Southern Hemisphere Ornithological Congresses (SHOC) comprise a short-lived series of two ornithological conferences focussing on the avifauna of the world’s southern continents, seas and islands. Both conferences were held in Australia under the auspices of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), following which the series lapsed. At least as far as Australia and New Zealand were concerned, the series was replaced by the ongoing biennial Australasian Ornithological Conference (AOC) series, instigated in 2001 by the RAOU and subsequently cosponsored by the Ornithological Society of New Zealand.
