Robert Ridgely
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Robert Ridgely has made an enormous contribution to Neotropical ornithology. He is the author, with John Gwynne, of A Guide to the Birds of Panama, still one of the finest field guides ever published. During the last three decades he has traveled to virtually every part of South America, and has become recognized as one of the top experts on South American birds. In the early 1980s, he and his friend, Guy Tudor, began the monumental task of producing a series of volumes covering all the birds of South America. The first volume, The Birds of South America: The Oscine Passerines, was published in 1989. It contains a magnificent set of plates by Tudor as well as Ridgely's concise, readable, and informative text. Only two veteran South American field men who had studied so many of these birds in life could have produced such a book. The second volume, The Suboscine Passerines, was published in 1994. Bob continued his publishing blitz with the appearance in 2001 of the two-volume The Birds of Ecuador, with Paul Greenfield. He has just completed work on a new photo guide, Hummingbirds of Ecuador, with photos by Murray Cooper and other friends in Quito. In late 2003, the lure of New Hampshire became too much, and Bob and his wife Peg made the move to their beloved house in the North Woods, where they were recently joined by their new Goldendoodle, Eli.