Shining Light - Hugh Chittenden

Shining Light - Hugh Chittenden

- Greg Davies

The outstanding traits of Hugh Chittenden are his relentless drive and deep curiosity. This became clear to me at our first meeting, when I was an intern at the Durban Museum. Hugh arrived one morning, tanned and with a bulging folder under his arm. He was freshly back from an expedition to Mozambique, having spent weeks camping rough in the bush while studying some of the region’s rarest birds. In his folder were copious field notes and jaw-dropping photographs of alethes and akalats, and in his mind were questions, lots of them. Was White-chested Alethe only a winter visitor to the Mozambican coastal plain? Why was African Broadbill so common in central Mozambique relative to KwaZuluNatal? What was the host for Barred Long tailed Cuckoo? With Hugh’s flair for discovery, taste for adventure and uncanny eye for an ornithological mystery, the southern African birding fraternity is lucky to have had him tirelessly committing himself to the field for the past four decades.