Phil Hansbro

Phil Hansbro lives in New South Wales, Australia with his partner Nic and dog Gazza.

He is originally from Yorkshire and grew up making birding notes from the age of seven, birding at Fairburn Ings and Flamborough Head. He was very active on the UK birding scene before moving to Australia in his mid-20s after gaining his PhD at Leeds University in 1991.

Phil has travelled very extensively on his huge number of overseas birding trips – to 140 countries no less and to every continent. He has also made long sea voyages across every ocean. He is passionate about anything to do with birding and conservation and co-owns two rainforests!

Phil’s greatest areas of expertise are in seabirds, Australia, New Guinea (both Papua New Guinea and West Papua), the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Mexico and the United States but he has been birding in most parts of the world. He has observed more than 95% of the birds found in Australasia, North America, Antarctica and the Western Palearctic, as well as achieving similar figures for the World’s seabirds, waders/shorebirds and waterfowl. He is always keen to explore new and particularly difficult areas that are a challenge. He has now observed over 8,000 bird species and is also very interested in seeing mammals. He is an author of many peer-reviewed publications on birds, particularly bird flu.