Dr Mark Andrew Brazil (born 8 June 1955) is a conservationist, author and journalist, particularly noted for his work on east Asian birds.
Brazil was born in Worcestershire, England, and studied at Keele University, Staffordshire, where he graduated with a double honours BA degree in Biology & English Literature in 1977. In 1981 he received his Ph.D. from Stirling University, Scotland for his thesis The behavioural ecology of the Whooper Swan. He worked for many years with Japanese natural history television (NHK Science) and then Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Natural History New Zealand (NHNZ). He has also worked for various other television companies, including the BBC and BBC Radio, as a scientific advisor, contributor and interviewee. From 1998 to 2007 he was professor of Biodiversity and Conservation at Rakuno Gakuen University, Hokkaido. Since 2007 he has been a freelance natural history and travel writer, an editor of scientific papers, and a frequent leader of expeditions in Japan and internationally.
He was previously scientific advisor/researcher for Natural History Television New Zealand; currently: author, editor, lecturer and expedition leader for Zegrahm Expeditions and Expedition Easy. Previously a resident of Ebetsu, since April 2018 he has been based in the Teshikaga area of east Hokkaido, in the buffer zone of the Akan-Mashu National Park.
Brazil was the author of the "Wild Watch" column for The Japan Times newspaper from April 1982 to March 2015, the longest running single-author natural history column in any newspaper.[ citation needed ] He has been writer in residence for JapanVisitor.com since June 2011.
Books
Has also published numerous papers, magazine and newspaper articles in the fields of science, natural history and travel.
The tundra swan is a small swan of the Holarctic. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species: Bewick's swan of the Palaearctic and the whistling swan proper of the Nearctic. Birds from eastern Russia are sometimes separated as the subspecies C. c. jankowskii, but this is not widely accepted as distinct, with most authors including them in C. c. bewickii. Tundra swans are sometimes separated in the subgenus Olor together with the other Arctic swan species.
The whooper swan, also known as the common swan, is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, and the type species for the genus Cygnus.
The yellow-breasted bunting is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae that is found across the Boreal and East Palearctic. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific aureola is Latin for "golden". The bird's call is a distinctive zick, and the song is a clear tru-tru, tri-tri.
The swan song is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death since they have been silent for most of their lifetime. The belief, whose basis has been long debated, had become proverbial in ancient Greece by the 3rd century BC and was reiterated many times in later Western poetry and art. Swans learn a variety of sounds throughout their lifetime. Their sounds are more distinguishable during courting rituals and not correlated with death.
The green peafowl or Indonesian peafowl is a peafowl species native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia and Indochina. It is the national bird of Myanmar. Formerly common throughout Southeast Asia, only a few isolated populations survive within Cambodia and adjacent areas of Vietnam. It has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2009, primarily due to widespread deforestation, agriculture and loss of suitable habitat, severely fragmenting the species' populations and contributing to an overall decline in numbers. Due to their natural beauty, they are still sometimes targeted by the pet trade, feather collectors, and even by hunters for meat. They are a much-desired bird for private and home aviculturists, despite their rather high-maintenance care requirements.
Stephen Moss is a British natural historian, birder, author, and television producer.
The Java sparrow, also known as Java finch, Java rice sparrow or Java rice bird, is a small passerine bird. This estrildid finch is a resident breeding bird in Java, Bali and Bawean in Indonesia. It is a popular cage bird, and has been introduced into many other countries.
The black-bellied whistling duck, formerly called the black-bellied tree duck, is a whistling duck that before 2000 bred mainly in the southernmost United States, Mexico, and tropical Central to south-central South America. It can be found year-round in much of the United States. It has been recorded in every eastern state and adjacent Canadian province. Since it is one of only two whistling duck species native to North America, it is occasionally just known as the "whistling duck" or "Mexican squealer" in the southern USA.
Mark Carwardine is a British zoologist who achieved widespread recognition with his 20-year conservation project – Last Chance to See – which involved round-the-world expeditions with Douglas Adams and Stephen Fry. The first series was aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1990, and the second, a TV series, on BBC2 in 2009. There are two books about the project: Last Chance to See, which he co-wrote with Adams (1990), and Last Chance to See: In the footsteps of Douglas Adams (2009). He is a leading and outspoken conservationist, and a prolific broadcaster, columnist and photographer.
The Helm Identification Guides are a series of books that identify groups of birds. The series include two types of guides, those that are:
Dominic Couzens is a leading nature writer, tour leader and lecturer based in the UK. He is the named author on 45 books, writes three regular magazine columns, and to date, has had more than 700 published articles.
Donald Ian Mackenzie Wallace, known as Ian Wallace, D.I.M. Wallace, or by his initials DIMW, was a British birder, author and artist.
Seton Gordon CBE (1886–1977) was a Scottish naturalist, photographer and folklorist.
Graham Martin Pizzey was a noted Australian author, photographer and ornithologist.
The black-headed parrot is a species of bird in subfamily Arinae of the family Psittacidae, the African and New World parrots. Other colloquial names are black-crowned parrot, black-capped parrot, black-headed caique, and for subspecies P. m. pallidus, pallid caique. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
The scarlet-backed flowerpecker is a species of passerine bird in the flowerpecker family Dicaeidae. Sexually dimorphic, the male has navy blue upperparts with a bright red streak down its back from its crown to its tail coverts, while the female and juvenile are predominantly olive green. It is found in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and occasionally gardens in a number of countries throughout South and East Asia.
The wing-barred seedeater is a passerine bird from coastal regions of north-eastern South America in north-eastern Venezuela, Tobago, the Guianas, Amapá and north-eastern Pará, Brazil, and along the Amazon River upstream to around Manaus. Formerly, it included the mainly Central American Sporophila corvina and the west Amazonian S. murallae as subspecies, in which case the combined species had the common name Variable Seedeater. Following the split, this common name is now restricted to S. corvina.
The Wild Bird Society of Japan (日本野鳥の会) was founded in 1934 in Tokyo, Japan. The organisation has 47,000 members and publishes a newsletter called Strix. Other relevant publications include the Field Guide to the Birds of Japan, Birds of East Asia, and A Birdwatchers's Guide to Japan by Mark Brazil.
Operation Migration was a nonprofit, charitable organization, which developed a method using ultralight aircraft to teach migration to captive-raised, precocial bird species such as Canada geese, trumpeter swans, sandhill cranes, and endangered whooping cranes.
Lake Utonai is a shallow freshwater lake in Tomakomai, Iburi Subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is within the Lake Utonai Sanctuary, created in 1981 as the first bird sanctuary designated in Japan. It later became the fourth Ramsar site in Japan in 1989.