Peter Slater (17 October 1932 - 28 May 2020) was an Australian ornithologist, wildlife artist and photographer. [1]
Slater grew up in Western Australia and moved to North Queensland in 1966. He began photographing birds from an early age, has won numerous awards in international exhibitions, and was made an Artiste of the Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique in 1964. He has produced several natural history books and field guides, often in collaboration with his wife Pat or his son Raoul. [2]
In her 2001 book Feather and Brush, a historical survey of Australian bird painting, Penny Olsen says:
”Naturalist, artist and writer, Peter Slater could be said to be the most modern equivalent of Neville Cayley Jr. Both have published enormously successful field guides to Australian birds, reprinted many times, and both have written on and illustrated butterflies." [3]
"To knowledgeable critics, Slater is now a more accomplished artist than his predecessor. However, this was not yet evident in his early artwork, which includes the plates in Australian Flycatchers and their Allies, among the first of a new wave of bird identification books. More than any of his contemporaries, he has developed his art in the public eye, chronicled in the many publications containing his work. His rare but successful exhibitions serve to mark stages in his progress and delineate the beginning of new phases in his work. Since 1964, he has illustrated with photographs or paintings, an impressive 30 or more books on birds, and reckons to have painted every Australian bird no less than four times." [3]
Books authored or coauthored by Slater, or those featuring his illustrations, include:
Currawongs are three species of medium-sized passerine birds belonging to the genus Strepera in the family Artamidae native to Australia. These are the grey currawong, pied currawong, and black currawong. The common name comes from the call of the familiar pied currawong of eastern Australia and is onomatopoeic. They were formerly known as crow-shrikes or bell-magpies. Despite their resemblance to crows and ravens, they are only distantly related to the corvidae, instead belonging to an Afro-Asian radiation of birds of superfamily Malaconotoidea.
The plumed whistling duck, also called the grass whistling duck, is a whistling duck that breeds in Australia. It is a predominantly brown-coloured duck with a long neck and characteristic plumes arising from its flanks. The sexes are similar in appearance.
The noisy friarbird is a passerine bird of the honeyeater family Meliphagidae native to southern New Guinea and eastern Australia. It is one of several species known as friarbirds whose heads are bare of feathers. It is brown-grey in colour, with a prominent knob on its bare black-skinned head. It feeds on insects and nectar.
William Harry Tietkens, known as "Harry Tietkens", explorer and naturalist, was born in England and emigrated to Australia in 1859. Tietkens was second in command to Ernest Giles on expeditions to Central Australia in 1873 and on a journey from Beltana, South Australia to Perth, Western Australia in 1875. In 1889 Tietkens led his own expedition west of Alice Springs to the vicinity of the Western Australian border. This expedition discovered Lake Macdonald, the Kintore Range, Mount Leisler, Mount Rennie, the Cleland Hills, defined the western borders of Lake Amadeus, and photographed Uluru and Kata Tjuta for the first time. The expedition collected new species of plants and rock samples allowing the South Australian government geologist to compile a 'geological sketch' of the country traversed. Tietkens was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society on his return. Specimens of 250 plant species were collected, although only 8 were new to science, and in 1890, Ferdinand von Mueller and Ralph Tate named Eremophila tietkensii in his honour.
George Neil Blaikie was an Australian author and journalist.
The chestnut-breasted mannikin, also known as the chestnut-breasted munia or bully bird, is a small brown-backed munia with a black face and greyish crown and nape. It has a broad ferruginous breast bar above a white belly. The species is found in Australia, New Caledonia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. This species has also been introduced to French Polynesia.
Eopsaltria is a genus of small forest passerines known in Australia as the yellow robins. They belong to the Australasian robin family Petroicidae. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek for "dawn singer/song" because of their dawn chorus. They are inquisitive and bold birds, and have been reported perching on the shoulders or boots of people in the bush. Open eucalyptus woodlands are their preferred habitat. The ornithologist John Gould likened the behaviour and mannerisms of the eastern and western yellow robin to those of the European robin. The name "yellow robin" itself was applied to the eastern yellow robin by the early settlers of New South Wales.
The purple-crowned lorikeet, is a lorikeet found in scrub and mallee of southern Australia. It is a small lorikeet distinguished by a purple crown, an orange forehead and ear-coverts, and a light blue chin and chest.
Harry Frauca was an Australian naturalist, writer and photographer. Of Catalan origin, he was born in Spain and educated in Denmark and England. He moved to Australia in the 1950s and became an Australian citizen. From 1960 he became a full-time writer and photographer on natural history, contributing with his wife to such publications as Walkabout. From 1970 he collected insects for the Australian National Insect Collection. The last years of his life were spent in Bundaberg, Queensland with his wife Claudia. He died in 1979.
The grey-headed robin is a species of bird in the family Petroicidae. It is found in northeastern Cape York Peninsula.
The lemon-bellied flyrobin or lemon-bellied flycatcher is a species of bird in the family Petroicidae. Found in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests.
The pink robin is a small passerine bird native to southeastern Australia. Its natural habitats are cool temperate forests of far southeastern Australia. Like many brightly coloured robins of the family Petroicidae, it is sexually dimorphic. Measuring 13.5 cm (5.3 in) in length, the robin has a small, thin, black bill, and dark brown eyes and legs. The male has a distinctive white forehead spot and pink breast, with grey-black upperparts, wings and tail. The belly is white. The female has grey-brown plumage. The position of the pink robin and its Australian relatives on the passerine family tree is unclear; the Petroicidae are not closely related to either the European or American robins, but appear to be an early offshoot of the Passerida group of songbirds.
The white-browed robin is a species of bird in the family Petroicidae. It is endemic to north-eastern Australia. Its natural habitats are forest, woodland and scrub, often near water. It formerly included the buff-sided robin as a subspecies.
The frill-necked monarch is a species of songbird in the family Monarchidae. It is endemic to the rainforests of the northern Cape York Peninsula in Australia.
Charles Warren Bonython, AO was an Australian conservationist, explorer, author, and chemical engineer. A keen bushwalker, he is perhaps best known for his role, spanning many years, of working towards the promotion, planning and eventual creation of the Heysen Trail. His work in conservation has been across a range of issues, but especially those connected with South Australian arid landscapes.
Hector Holthouse was an Australian journalist and author.
A Field Guide to Australian Birds is a two-volume bird field guide published by Rigby of Adelaide, South Australia, in its Rigby Field Guide series. The first volume was issued in 1970, with the second volume appearing in 1974. It was Australia’s first new national bird field guide since the 1931 publication of the first edition of Neville Cayley’s What Bird is That?. It was principally authored by Australian ornithologist, artist and photographer Peter Slater.
Gordon Ridley Beruldsen was an Australian ornithologist and an expert on the nests and eggs of Australian birds. Beruldsen died in Brisbane, Queensland, after four years of illness with Amyloidosis. He was survived by his wife Erina as well as several children, grandchildren and great –grandchildren.
James David Macdonald FLS FZS FIB was a Scottish-Australian ornithologist and ornithological writer. A traditional museum ornithologist, he did much to build up the collections of African and Australian birds held by the British Museum, as well as popularising ornithology through his writings.
The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds is one of the main national bird field guides used by Australian birders.