Dr Grant Humphries
Dr. Grant Humphries is the director of Black Bawks Data Science, lead data scientist at HiDef Aerial Surveying, and a marine ornithologist with a background in machine learning, non-parametric statistics and spatial ecology. Grant has been working with seabirds since 2006 but has experience in a number of fields focusing on ways of implementing cutting […]
Dr Susan Cunningham
Susie is a senior lecturer at the FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town. She has been involved in the Hot Birds Research Project, an international collaboration investigating the impact of climate change on desert birds globally, since 2010. She leads the team’s research on birds’ behavioural responses to heat and consequences of these. Susie is […]
Niall Perrins
Niall cut his teeth birding as a youngster in Botswana, where his father Mike taught him the ropes. Since 2013 he has been leading tours, in Southern Africa, as well as further afield, in other parts of Africa, South and Central America, Asia and Europe. Photography and nature are his passions, which he enjoys sharing […]
Dr Rita Covas
Dr Rita Covas is a behavioural ecologist and evolutionary biologist with a strong interest in the evolution and consequences of sociality and a passion for fieldwork. She uses birds as study models having worked on cooperation using the sociable weaver for nearly 20 years and since 2016 she has been conducting research on another cooperative […]
Dr Petra Sumasgutner
Petra is an urban ecologist and raptor researcher who recently transitioned from a post-doc fellowship at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, Cape Town to the Konrad Lorenz Research Centre in Austria. She initiated the Viennese Kestrel Project as her PhD research, and graduated from the University of Vienna in 2014. Ever since she has […]
Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan
Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan is a palaeobiologist in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Cape Town. She is a global expert on the microscopic structure of the bones of extinct and extant vertebrates. Her work has been recognized by several highly acclaimed awards: For example, in 1995 she received an NRF President Award, […]
Carla du Toit
Carla du Toit is a final year PhD student at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town. For her doctoral thesis, she is studying the sensory ecology of ibises and other probe foraging birds and how this relates to their foraging behaviour and beak morphology. Her project also encapsulates a […]
Celiwe Ngcamphalala
Celiwe Ngcamphalala is a PhD Candidate at the University of Pretoria, and relatively new to the ornithological community! Her interest in birds began in 2013, during her Honours year when Professor Adrian Craig at Rhodes University taught Avian Biology. She became fascinated by bird behaviour and their ‘personalities’. Two years later, she was pursuing a […]
Lynette Rudman
Having grown up on a farm and being close to nature all her life, she loves to share her passion for the natural world with others on the two Facebook groups that she created, Eastern Cape Birding and Southern African Bird Calls, and on her Youtube channel.
Dr Chris Boland
Dr Chris Boland obtained his PhD in Ornithology at the Australian National University. His research focused on the evolutionary ecology of Rainbow Bee-eaters, but included side-projects on White-winged Choughs, Superb Fairy Wrens, Albatross, Red-tailed Tropicbirds, Emus, and Gouldian Finches. He then lectured for five years at the ANU in animal behavior, conservation, evolutionary ecology, genetics […]