As an under-graduate student Kerry-Jayne Wilson stood on the cliffs of the sub-Antarctic Snares Islands and watched penguins, shearwaters, petrels and albatrosses head out to sea and wondered where they went, how they caught food and how they navigated the open ocean. These questions have intrigued her ever since and led her to undertake conservation-related research on seabirds in New Zealand, the Chathams and sub-Antarctic Islands, the Southern Ocean, Antarctica, Newfoundland and briefly in several other parts of the world. She was a senior lecturer in ecology and conservation at Lincoln University for many years and has worked for the last 12 years as an ornithologist, natural-history writer and educator. 'New Zealand Seabirds' is her fourth book. In 2019 she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to seabird conservation. She lives on the South Island's West Coast