Graham Pizzey

Graham Martin Pizzey AM (4 July 1930 – 12 November 2001) was an Australian author, journalist, photographer, conservationist, and ornithologist. He was appointed in 1977 a Member of the Order of Australia for services to conservation and ornithology and in 1986 was awarded the Australian Natural History Medallion. His book A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia went through several editions and is widely regarded as a classic of its genre.

Quotes

One of Australia's least savoury wildlife episodes was the long slaughter of koalas for their fur, which continued in some States to the end of the 1920's. In 1924 over 2 million koala pelts were exported, many under the pseudonym of 'wombat' to avoid the odium of publicity.
- Animals and Birds in Australia. Cassell Australia. 1966. p. 16. (170 pages)

From time to time I get a query about an unusual waterhen people have seen. It's usually described as dark, with red legs — and a cocked tail that makes it look 'like a little bantam'. Some say they have seen it far from water. Most agree that 'it runs like hell'. Over the years I've had more technical enquiries, but there's not the slightest doubt the bird in question in this case is that peculiarly Australian creation, the black-tailed native-hen (Tribonyx ventralis), a species of small rail.
- "Barcoo Bantam: 'It Runs Like Hell!'". Chapter 3. Boom & Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country by Graham Pizzey. CSIRO Publishing. 2009. pp. 35–43. ISBN 9780643096066. (quote from p. 35; 299 pages)

An extraordinary diversity of marsupial, monotreme, bird and reptile fauna had developed from Gondwanan ancestors. Small, sharp-fanged marsupial 'lions'; cow-sized browsing diprotodons; giant kangaroos, even a kangaroo thought by its dentition to have been carnivorous; and huge, 3-metre flightless birds were all present.
- A Garden of Birds: Australian Birds in Australian Gardens. Viking O'Neil. 1988. p. 30. ISBN 9780670901227. (342 pages)

Watching bouncing, tinkling flocks of goldfinches feeding on thistles at Phillip Island once, the American ornithologist Dr Roger Tory Peterson guessed he had seen more goldfinches there than even in Europe.
- p.89 (Roger Tory Peterson received 23 honorary doctorates.)

The lawyer-ornithologist Norman Favaloro tells of removing a house sparrow's nest from a 'well-formed hollow' in a eucalyptus in the Melbourne outer suburbs of Mitcham ... Two weeks later he cleared out a starling's nest from the hollow. Three weeks later he flushed a kookaburra from a clutch of three eggs in the same hollow.
Clearly the starling is causing losses among native birds ...
- p.98

The late Keith Hindwood, a Sydney printer and skilled and deservedly respected ornithologist, considered the red wattlebird to breed rarely in Sydney in his early days (born in 1904, he died in 1971). But in later years he recorded that some birds were always present and breeding. It seems likely that, in part at least, this change reflected the planting of flowering trees and shrubs in Sydney gardens.
- p. 201; 1st part of quote; last part of quote