An eye for a bird: The autobiography of a bird photographer

by Eric Hosking

An eye for a The autobiography of a bird photographer

Genres: Photography, Biography, Birds

302 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 1970

About the author

Eric John Hosking OBE, Hon FRPS, was a pioneering wildlife photographer and the first professional photographer to make a living predominantly from photographing birds.

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong]

For all you bird lovers out there, Eric Hosking describes his career as an ornithologist, spending hours and years of his life in hides and blinds observing birds of every species living in the U.K. and also in a few European continental countries.

One would think that Hosking would have found a different line of work because early on while hiding in a blind, an owl entered and slashed one of his eyes with its talon. It became infected and was told the eye needed to be removed or he'd lose both eyes.

This did not deter him, and good for the rest of us because this is an engaging description of Hosking's career (with only one eye) from the 30s into the 70s studying, lecturing and recording the lives of birds through photography.

[Gillian]

Totally mesmerised from the beginning to the end. Interested, as a birdwatcher, in the difference in species commonly found now in the places which both he and I have visited compared to those the author found when he had visited the areas decades before. Had the relevant bird guides beside me as I read. Really pleased I succumbed when I was in a second hand bookshop.