Andrew Whittaker

Andrew Whittaker (* 1960 in Leamington , Great Britain ) is a British ornithologist , bioacoustic specialist and conservationist who works primarily in Brazil .

Life

Whittaker's fascination with the world of birds was sparked at the age of seven by his father, who was himself an avid bird watcher . At the age of eleven he accompanied ornithologist Clive Minton (* 1934) on several excursions and learned how to ring birds from him . Whittaker first worked as a senior bird ringer in Israel in 1982. This was followed by engagements at the Sandwich Bay ornithological station in Kent, Borneo, the Long Point ornithological station in Canada and the Fair Isle ornithological station in Scotland . In 1987 he volunteered for a three-year joint project between the WWF and the Smithsonian Institution in Manaus , Brazil. In his second year he became a project manager for ringing rainforest birds. From 1993 he organized bird watching tours for the American ecotourism company Victor Emanuel Nature Tours. In 1995 he founded his own company, Brazil Birding Tours. In addition to his tours in Brazil, he traveled to South America, Antarctica, Central America and Europe. His clients have also included celebrities including Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , Al Gore , Tom Hayden and journalist Tom Brokaw . In 2000 he was David Attenborough's scientific advisor for the television series The Life of Birds . In addition to ringing, Whittaker works as a bioacoustic specialist. Over 900 hours of bird calls are archived in the British Library of Natural Sounds in London, recorded by Whittaker in Brazil. In 2008 the National Institute for Amazonian Research released four of Whittaker's CDs under the title Voices of Brazilian Amazon . A second edition appeared in 2012. In 2010 a DVD with songs, calls and photos of 1051 Brazilian bird species was published by Avis Brasilis. In 2001 Whittaker, in collaboration with Kevin Zimmer, described the chapadatyrann under the name Suiriri islerorum , which is now considered a junior synonym for the taxon Suiriri affinis , which was described by Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister in 1856 . In 1997 Whittaker discovered a new species of falcon while recording birdsong , which he first described in 2003 as the Minton Forest Falcon ( Micrastur mintoni ) . In 2013, together with Steven Leon Hilty and David Ascanio, he wrote the first scientific description of the Orinococanastero ( Thripophaga amacurensis ), a species that was only discovered in 2004. In addition, Whittaker was able to document the occurrence of 19 bird species that had not previously been detected in Brazil.

Whittaker also succeeded in rediscovering three species of birds that were believed to be lost, including the red-headed lazy bird ( Nonnula amaurocephala ) (no evidence between 1936 and 1992), the furry deathrann ( Hemitriccus inornatus ) (no evidence between 1831 and 1992) and the white-tailed tityra ( Tityra leucura ) (no evidence between 1829 and 2007). However, the latter taxon is no longer regarded as a valid species, but as an almost fully grown abnormal hybrid between the black-billed Tityra subspecies Tityra inquisitor albitorques and Tityra inquisitor pelzelni .

Dedication names

In 2007 Whittaker discovered a new species of bird from the family of the ant pittas (Grallariidae) in the Floresta Nacional do Tapajós in the state of Pará , which his colleagues Lincoln Silva Carneiro, Luiz Pedreira Gonzaga, Péricles S. Rêgo, Iracilda Sampaio, Horacio Schneider and Alexandre Aleixo in the year It was first described in 2012 when Alta Floresta spectacle ant pitta ( Hylopezus whittakeri ).

literature

• Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds A & C Black, 2014. ISBN 978-1472905734

Web links

• Biographical entry on Birding Brazil Tours (English)
• Biographical entry on Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (English)
• Interview and biographical entry at Aves de Rapina Brasil (Portuguese)