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 […]
Faraaz Abdool

Faraaz Abdool is an internationally published freelance conservation and wildlife photographer/writer who specializes in birds and the issues they face worldwide. Faraaz also runs yearly birding and wildlife tours to East Africa.
Jared and Lancy

Jared Clarke is a native Newfoundlander and was introduced to the outdoors at a very young age, mostly by his grandfathers. Always a nature enthusiast, he became interested in birds while working for a local conservation group and soon became one of the most avid birders in the province. He currently runs a small bird […]
Lancy Cheng

Lancy Cheng is an ornithologist with HX Hurtigruten Expeditions. He loves everything with feathers, especially gulls. With this passion, he chose to live in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the “Capital of Kumlien’s gull” in North America. He spends most of his time in the woods, by the lake or on the beach, looking for and studying […]