Peter Colston

Peter Robert Colston (* 1935 ) is a British ornithologist .

Life

In February 1961, Colston joined the Bird Department of the Natural History Museum in London as a field ornithologist . In the same year he accompanied Reginald William Sims and Graham S. Cowles to Andalusia , where he learned the preparation trade. From 1962 to 1963 and in 1966 he undertook collection expeditions to Australia , financed by the Australian zoologist and philanthropist Harold Wesley Hall (1888–1964). In 1963 he discovered the soot-bellied saber ( Pomatostomus halli ) in southwest Queensland , which was described by Graham S. Cowles in 1964 and named in honor of Harold Hall. In 1970 he was on a research expedition of the Royal Geographical Society to the northern Turkana district in Kenya . Starting in 1971, the bird's hide collection was moved to the Natural History Museum at Tring and curated by Colston. In 1976 he was appointed scientific director. In 1995 he retired from active museum service.

Colston described several African Vogeltaxa, including the Appertmadagaskarsänger ( Xanthomixis apperti ) which Ashlerche ( Mirafra ashi ), the subspecies Mirafra somalica rochei the Somali giant Lerche , the subspecies Anthus melindae mallablensis of Malindipiepers , the subspecies acrocephalus rufescens senegalensis of Papyrus warbler , and together with Hadoram Shirihai the subspecies riparia riparia Eilata the sand martin . Between 1989 and 1995 he accompanied Per Alström and Urban Olsson on private expeditions to China, during which three previously undescribed species of warbler were discovered. Together with Alström and Olsson, he described the taxon Phylloscopus sichuanensis in 1992 , which is now considered the junior synonym of the Yunnan leaf warbler ( Phylloscopus yunnanensis ), and in 1993 the grove warbler ( Phylloscopus hainanus ).

In 1970 he published the book An Atlas of Speciation in African Birds , 1986 in collaboration with Kai Curry-Lindahl the book Birds of the Mount Nimba Region in Liberia , in 1988 together with Philip John Kennedy Burton the book A Field Guide to the Waders of Britain and Europe with North Africa and the Middle East (German: Limicolen: all European wading bird species, identifiers, flight images, biology, distribution ) and in 1991 the book A Field Guide to the rare Birds of Britain together with Per Alström and Ian Lewington .

literature

• Bo Beolens, Michael Grayson, Michael Watkins: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

Web links

• Profile at the Natural History Museum