ROBERTS BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA [Inscribed to Eris Hosking by Peter Steyn, Ornithologist]

Pp. xxxii, 643; numerous colour and b/w plates. Original dust jacket very good, toned to the spine with a little rubbing to edges, not price-clipped, now attractively presented in a loose-fitting clear archival sleeve. Hard-back binding, very good. Contents clean and tight, bookplate belonging to Eric Hosking tipped onto the front pastedown, no inscriptions. A very good copy in a very good to near fine jacket. Particularly scarce with the jacket. [Eric Hosking OBE, Hon FRPS, FBIPP (1909-1991) was widely acknowledged as one of the world's most eminent natural history photographers, "Perhaps the most famous bird photographer ever to have lived" (Gemma Padley). He was pioneering and developed new techniques, especially the use of flash photography and automatic shutter release technology, which enabled him to photograph birds at night and freeze birds in flight for the first time. Famously, when just 28 he lost an eye to a tawny owl while climbing up to a hide in rural Wales, the event which inspired the ingenious title of his autobiography "An Eye for a Bird", 1970. Over his exceptionally long career he photographed over 1,800 species, and his pictures have appeared in some 1,000 books, including the popular New Naturalist series, of which he was photographic editor. Hosking was not only a photographer of birds but also a highly knowledgeable ornithologist.] Peter Steyn -a lifetime devoted to the study of all things birds, outstanding contribution to ornithological science. Peter Steyn's published books are: Eagle Days (1973); A Guide to the Common Birds of Wankie (later Hwange) National Park (1974), which remained in print for 25 years; his major work, Birds of Prey of Southern Africa (1982), which ran to three impressions and still remains the definitive reference work on these raptors; A Delight of Owls (1984); Hunters of the African Sky (1990); Birds of Southern Africa (1991); his second major - and a lifetime's - work, Nesting Birds (1996); and Antarctic Impressions - Seasons in the Southern Ocean ( 2007). Size: 8vo.