Antarctica: A guide to the wildlife

Author Biography

Tony Soper co-founded the BBC's Natural History Unit and made wildlife films worldwide. He was bowled over by Antarctica on his first visit in 1992, when he sailed the 'furious fifties' as a lecturer on the pioneer tourist vessel World Discoverer. Looking for a pocket guide to the region's birds, he found there was no such thing, so wrote his own version on small cards. On return, he persuaded his friend Hilary Bradt to let him upgrade the cards to a paperback book. The eight editions of Bradt's Antarctica: a guide to the wildlife are the result. Like the trans-hemisphere Arctic tern, Soper has subsequently migrated numerous times to the deep south. Working as expedition leader or wildlife lecturer, he has crossed the dreaded Drake Passage over a hundred times to enjoy the endless excitement and pleasures of exploring Antarctica's spectacular scenery and its world of penguins and great whales. After training and working as a zoologist, Dafila Scott (dafilascott.co.uk) turned to drawing and painting. Much of her work is inspired by wildlife and landscape, featuring animals or places with which she has become familiar, notably Antarctica - a region with which she has a long family connection, including through her grandfather (Captain Robert Scott, aka 'Scott of the Antarctic'). As daughter of conservationist and broadcaster Sir Peter Scott, she has been steeped in nature since childhood. A member of the Society of Wildlife Artists, in 2017 she won that Society's RSPB Award.