Gilbert White was a "parson-naturalist", a pioneering English naturalist, ecologist, and ornithologist. He is best known for his Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO was a British soldier, intelligence officer, and ornithologist. He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He was credited with creating and executing the Haversack Ruse in October 1917, during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, but his participation in this matter has since been refuted.
Richard Thomas Mabey is a writer and broadcaster, chiefly on the relations between nature and culture.
Caryl Phillips is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels, Phillips is often described as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional output is defined by its interest in, and searching exploration of, the experiences of peoples of the African diaspora in England, the Caribbean and the United States. As well as writing, Phillips has worked as an academic at numerous institutions including Amherst College, Barnard College, and Yale University, where he has held the position of Professor of English since 2005.
Frederick Marshman Bailey was a British political officer and one of the last protagonists of The Great Game. His expeditions in Tibet and Assam Himalaya gave him many opportunities to pursue his hobbies of photography, butterfly collecting, and trophy hunting in the high Tibetan region. Over 2000 of his bird specimens were presented to the Natural History Museum, although his personal collection is now held in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. His papers and extensive photograph collections are held in the British Library, London.
Richard Wasey Chopping was a British illustrator and author best known for painting the dust jackets of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels starting with From Russia, with Love (1957).
Nature writing is nonfiction or fiction prose or poetry about the natural environment. Nature writing encompasses a wide variety of works, ranging from those that place primary emphasis on natural history facts to those in which philosophical interpretation predominate. It includes natural history essays, poetry, essays of solitude or escape, as well as travel and adventure writing.
Nature photography is a wide range of photography taken outdoors and devoted to displaying natural elements such as landscapes, wildlife, plants, and close-ups of natural scenes and textures. Nature photography tends to put a stronger emphasis on the aesthetic value of the photo than other photography genres, such as photojournalism and documentary photography.
David Tipling is a professional wildlife photographer. He has won the documentary award for the European Nature Photographer of the Year for his work on emperor penguins.
Birds and People is a ten-year-long, groundbreaking collaboration between the publishers Random House and BirdLife International, to survey and document worldwide, the cultural significance of birds. The Birds and People project involves an open internet forum, for individuals worldwide to document their reflections, experiences and stories about birds. Established by the leading naturalist and author Mark Cocker in collaboration with the eminent wildlife photographer David Tipling and the Natural history specialist, Jonathan Elphick, the Birds and People project is a new experiment in natural history and cultural anthropology.
"The sense of freedom evoked by birds in flight has been a source of inspiration alike to tribal communities and the world’s major civilisations. Writers, poets, artists and composers have drawn on the qualities of birds for thousands of years. Today birds often play the role of ambassador in our entire relationship with nature. For environmentalists they are collectively the miner’s canary, their populations helping us to gauge the health of natural environments from the inner-city to the remote Arctic tundra. Yet our connections with birds far exceed any simple utilitarian value. Very often at a domestic level they are cherished for their own sake, as simple companions, as aesthetic adornments and as expression of some unspoken bond between ourselves and the rest of nature.
Jonathan Elphick is a natural history author, editor and consultant. He is an eminent ornithologist, a qualified zoologist; Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He is author of The Birdwatcher's Handbook: A Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland; Birds: The Art of Ornithology and The Natural History Museum Atlas of Bird Migration: Tracing the Great Journeys of the World's Birds, which received Bird Watching Magazine's 'Best Bird Reference Book of the Year'; as well as co-author of the Encyclopedia of Animals; the RSPB Pocket Birds; A Unique Photographic Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe with Jonathan Woodward and The National Parks and other Wild Places of Britain and Ireland, with photography by David Tipling.
Peter Conder, OBE was a British ornithologist and conservationist known predominantly for his contribution as Director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Birds Britannia is a BBC's four-part television series about the birds of the United Kingdom, first shown from 7 to 28 November 2010 on BBC Four. It was produced by Stephen Moss.
Birds Britannica is a book by Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey, about the birds of the United Kingdom, and a sister volume to Mabey's 1996 Flora Britannica, about British plants. It was published in 2005 by Chatto & Windus.
Shite-hawk or shit-hawk or shitty hawk is a slang name applied to various birds of prey that exhibit scavenging behaviour, originally and primarily the black kite, although the term has also been applied to other birds such as the herring gull. It is also a slang derogatory term for an unpleasant person.
Eric Mosbacher was an English journalist and translator from Italian, French, German and Spanish. He translated work by Ignazio Silone and Sigmund Freud.
The Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds was written by the English naturalist and army officer George Montagu, and first published by J. White of Fleet Street, London in 1802.
Wild: An Elemental Journey is a 2006 book about travel in Earth's wildernesses by the British writer Jay Griffiths.
Peter Marren is a British writer, journalist, and naturalist. He has written over 20 books about British nature, including Chasing the Ghost: My Search for all the Wild Flowers of Britain (2018), an account of a year-long quest to see every wild flower in the UK; Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Butterfly Delight (2016); Bugs Britannica (2010); and After They're Gone: Extinctions Past, Present and Future (2022). Marren has also written a number of books about military history and battlefields and, as a journalist, many national newspaper articles.
