Andrew Whittaker – Wikipedia

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

Whittak’s fascination for bird world was awakened by his father at the age of seven, who was a passionate bird observer himself. At the age of eleven, he accompanied the ornithologist Clive Minton (* 1934) to several excursions and learned the bird ratio with him. Whitaker had his first work as a senior Vogelberinger in 1982 in Israel. This was followed by engagements at the Sandwich Bay in Kent, Borneo, on the Virgin Point Point in Canada and on the Fair Isle in Scotland. In 1987 he went as a volunteer for a three -year joint project of the WWF with the Smithsonian Institution to Manaus in Brazil. In the second year he became project manager in the rainforest birds. From 1993 he organized Victor Tours Bird observation 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 South America, Antarctic, Central America and Europe. His customers also included celebrities, including Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Al Gore, Tom Hayden and the journalist Tom Brokaw. In 2000 he stood David Attenborough as a scientific consultant for the television series The life of the birds to the side. In addition to the ratio, Whittaker works as a bioakoustic. Over 900 hours of bird voices are archived in the British Library of Natural Sounds in London, which Whittaker had recorded in Brazil. In 2008 the National Institute for Amazonian Research published four by Whittakers CDs under the title Voices of Brazilian Amazon . A second edition appeared in 2012. In 2010, a DVD with chants, calls and photos of 1051 Brazilian bird species was published by Avis Brasilis publisher. In 2001, Whittaker described the Chapadatyrann under the name in cooperation with Kevin Zimmer Suiriri Islerorum today as a junior synonym for the taxon Suiriri related applies, which was already described by Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister in 1856. In 1997 Whittaker discovered a new species of falcon during bird’s voice recordings, which he was in 2003 as a Mintonwaldfalke ( Micrastur Mintoni ) first described. In 2013, together with Steven Leon Hilty and David Ascanio, he wrote the first description of the first description of the Orinokocanastero ( Thripophaga amacurensis ), a species that was only discovered in 2004. In addition, Whittaker was able to document the occurrence of 19 bird species that were previously not detected in Brazil.

In addition, Whittaker succeeded in rediscovering three bird species believed to Some amaurocephala ) (no proof between 1936 and 1992), the fur talent modyrano ( Hemitriccus inornatus ) (No proof between 1831 and 1992) and the white tail title ( Tioty Laucura ) (no proof 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-beak-tityra subspecies Titlera inquisitor Albitorgques and Tityra inquisitor pelzelni .

In 2007, Whittaker discovered a new bird species from the family of the ant spittas (Grallariidae) in the state of Pará 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 2012 as an Alta floresta glasses pitta ( Hylopezus whittakeri ) was first described.

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