Frank Knight | |
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Born | 1941 (age 82–83) |
Nationality | Australian |
Known for | Science and natural history illustrations |
Frank Knight (born 1941) is an Australian wildlife artist and ornithologist. He was born in Port Hedland, Western Australia. He worked as a field and laboratory assistant for the CSIRO from 1959 to 1966, and was the illustrator for the CSIRO's Division of Wildlife Research from 1966 until 1989. [1] He was the illustrator of The Graham Pizzey and Frank Knight Field Guide to the Birds of Australia and A Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia , as well as of many other scientific and natural history texts and children's books. He has had several solo exhibitions in Australia. [2]
The striated pardalote is the least colourful and most common of the four pardalote species. Other common names include pickwick, wittachew and chip-chip. It is a very small, short-tailed bird that is more often heard than seen, foraging noisily for lerps and other small creatures in the treetops.
The silver gull is a gull in Oceania. It is the most common gull of Australia. It has been found throughout the continent, but particularly at or near coastal areas. It is smaller than the Pacific gull, which also lives in Australia.
The restless flycatcher or restless myiagra is a passerine bird in the family Monarchidae; it is also known as the razor grinder or scissors grinder because of its distinctive call. It is a native of eastern and southern Australia. Populations in New Guinea and northern Australia, which were at one time considered to be a subspecies, are now accepted as a separate species, the paperbark flycatcher. It is a small to medium-sized bird and has similar colouring to the willie wagtail.
Graham Martin Pizzey was a noted Australian author, photographer and ornithologist.
The pied heron, also known as the pied egret is a bird found in coastal and subcoastal areas of monsoonal northern Australia as well as some parts of Wallacea and New Guinea.
The yellow-bellied glider, also known as the fluffy glider, is an arboreal and nocturnal gliding possum that lives in native eucalypt forests in eastern Australia, from northern Queensland south to Victoria.
The Australian pipit is a fairly small passerine bird of open country in Australia and New Guinea. It belongs to the pipit genus Anthus in the family Motacillidae.
The beautiful firetail is a common species of estrildid finch found in Australia. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 1,000,000 km2 (390,000 sq mi). The species inhabits temperate shrubland habitats in Australia. The IUCN has classified the species as being of least concern.
The Papuan harrier is a bird of prey native to New Guinea which belongs to the harrier genus Circus. It was classified as a subspecies of the eastern marsh harrier of eastern Asia.
The red-kneed dotterel is a species of plover in a monotypic genus in the subfamily Vanellinae. It is often gregarious and will associate with other waders of its own and different species, even when nesting. It is nomadic and sometimes irruptive.
The common bronzewing is a species of medium-sized, heavily built pigeon. Native to Australia and one of the country's most common pigeons, the common bronzewing is able to live in almost any habitat, with the possible exception of very barren areas and dense rainforests. Its advertising call is an extraordinary mournful whooo repeated at metronomic intervals.
The Papuan frogmouth is a species of bird in the family Podargidae, found in the Aru Islands, New Guinea, and in Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia.
The western bowerbird is a species of bird in the family Ptilonorhynchidae. The species is a common endemic of Australia. It has a disjunct distribution, occurring in Central Australia and the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The bristlebirds are a family of passerine birds, Dasyornithidae. There are three species in one genus, Dasyornis. The family is endemic to the south-east coast and south-west corner of Australia. The genus Dasyornis was sometimes placed in the Acanthizidae or, as a subfamily, Dasyornithinae, along with the Acanthizinae and Pardalotinae, within an expanded Pardalotidae, before being elevated to full family level by Christidis & Boles (2008).
The yellow-throated honeyeater is a species of passerine bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. It is similar in behaviour and appearance to the white-eared honeyeater and is endemic to Australia's island state of Tasmania. It was formerly considered a pest of orchards.
The emu-wrens (Stipiturus) are a genus of passerine birds in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. They are found only in Australia, where they inhabit scrub, heathland and grassland. They are small birds, 12–19 cm long with the tail accounting for over half of their length. The tail has only six feathers which are loose and coarse in structure, rather like the feathers of the emu. Three species are recognised, of which the mallee emu-wren is endangered.
The Tasmanian masked owl is a bird in the barn owl family Tytonidae that is endemic to the island state of Tasmania, Australia. It is the largest subspecies of the Australian masked owl, the largest Tyto owl in the world, and is sometimes considered a full species. The subspecific name castanops, meaning "chestnut-faced", comes from the colouring of the facial disc. It was first described by John Gould, who wrote about it in his Handbook to the Birds of Australia as:
"…a species distinguished from all the other members of its genus by its great size and powerful form. Probably few of the Raptorial birds, with the exception of the Eagles, are more formidable or more sanguinary in disposition."
"Forests of large but thinly scattered trees, skirting plains and open districts, constitute its natural habitat. Strictly nocturnal in its habits, as night approaches it sallies forth from the hollows of the large gum-trees, and flaps slowly and noiselessly over the plains and swamps in search of its prey, which consists of rats and small quadrupeds generally."
A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia was first published in 1980 by Collins, Sydney. It was authored by Graham Pizzey with illustrations by Roy B. Doyle. The first edition was issued in octavo format, 220 mm in height by 140 mm width, with a foreword by D.L. Serventy. It contained 460 pages of text with 32 black-and-white and 56 colour plates illustrating nearly all species of birds recorded in Australia at the time of publication. The plates were bunched between pages 300 and 301, while there were 725 maps of breeding distribution on pages 411-442 between the main text and the indexes, as well as maps of Australia in the end papers. Its success was such that it was followed by several further editions.
The Australian Bird Guide was published by CSIRO Publishing in 2017. Written by Peter Menkhorst along with Danny Rogers and Rohan Clarke and illustrations by Jeff Davies, Peter Marsack and Kim Franklin, the book took almost eight years to produce. It includes 936 birds including 160 vagrants and information on the evolution and classification of birds. Upon its release, the book was praised for its comprehensiveness, images, and text detail, however, the index and measurements were criticised. A compact version of the guide was also released in 2022.