Researchers

Serving in the department of birds and mammals at the San Diego Natural History Museum since 1988, Philip Unitt has over 50 years of experience in ornithology. He is an expert on the identification, distribution, and historical trends in the birds of southern California and Baja California, having published over 40 articles, book chapters, and books, including Birds of the Salton Sea (2003) and the San Diego County Bird Atlas (2004). He served on the California Department of Fish and Game’s Technical Advisory Committee for the revision of its roster of bird species of special concern, and authored six accounts in the revision published in 2008. His study of the effects of the wildfires of 2002 and 2003 was published in 2017. In addition, he has prepared over 4000 bird specimens and speaks regularly to the public and media on southern California birds and their changing distributions and ecology. In his role as an editor, he has and produced publications on a wide variety of scientific subjects for diverse readers and has served as editor of Western Birds, the regional journal of ornithology for western North America, since 1986.