A DELIGHT OF OWLS - AFRICAN OWLS OBSERVED [Iscribed by the author]

South Africa: Jacana Media, 2009. Book. Fine. Paperback. Inscribed By the Author. Improved Edition. 8vo. Inscribed by the author to Eric Hosking's son David as thanks for Eric's forward for the first edtiion now unchanged. 175 pages; numerous colour photographic illustrations. Covers fine. Contents clean and tight, inscribed and signed. A fine copy with an interesting provenance. 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 ingeneous 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.].