Frank Lambert’s main passion in life is birding, something he has managed to pursue both as a hobby and as a profession. Most of his professional career was spent working for various conservation organisations in South-east Asia and Indonesia, where he got to know the avifauna extremely well. He spent more than three years living in the lowland rainforest of Peninsular Malaysia, studying the interaction between fruit-eating birds and figs, and another year at Danum Valley in Sabah, studying the effects of logging on birds. Subsequently, he worked for several different conservation organisations, including BirdLife International in Indonesia, The World Conservation Union (IUCN: he was stationed in Thailand for two years) and TRAFFIC International (which investigates wildlife trade issues). Between working assignments, he spent the majority of his time travelling to see birds, not just in Asia, but to many parts of the globe. Having become disillusioned with the conservation scene in Asia, Frank moved to South America and lived there from 2002 until 2008. Whilst based in Peru, he spent the majority of his time birding or leading tours or doing voluntary work on birds and mammals in Peru, Colombia and Brazil. He has led more than ten tours in Peru and several in Colombia and Chile. In 2009, Frank moved his base back to Malaysia and is now busy reacquainting himself with the birds of South-east Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

During the course of his career, Frank has written or contributed to more than 50 papers, many concerned with rare species of bird that were found during his extensive travels, including four species new to science (two rails, and owl and a twistwing) and a number of rediscoveries, such as Sooty Babbler and Vietnamese Pheasant. Frank also wrote the definitive book on “Pittas, Broadbills and Asities” for the Christopher Helm series. More recently, he was involved in drafting the texts for twenty families of birds covered in Volume 2 of Pam Rasmussen´s book “Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide”. Frank is a native English speaker but also speaks Indonesian, Malay and Spanish.