About Robert Burton

When I was eight, I was given a book on dinosaurs and immediately gave up my dream of becoming an engine-driver and decided to be a zoologist like my father. After graduating in zoology at Cambridge University in 1963, I joined the British Antarctic Survey for a two-year tour and studied birds and seals. On my return home in 1966, I joined my father to serve a unique apprenticeship as a natural history writer.
	At 4	50 years later

I have now written about 40 books and I write articles for magazines, including The Garden and British Wildlife as well as the Daily Telegraph. Freelance writing has given me the freedom to go on a number of expeditions to remote places. For several years I was a part-time field assistant for the Sea Mammals Research Unit, counting and observing seals around British coasts. In 1971 I went South again and spent a summer at South Georgia studying albatrosses. I have been a scientific advisor to three Joint Services Expeditions to Greenland and Ellesmere Island in Arctic Canada. I now regularly visit the Antarctic and Arctic on cruise ships, lecturing on natural history and polar history, and also as a director of the adventure holiday company Arcturus Expeditions which specialises in travel to the polar regions. 

In 1998 I was awarded the Polar Medal for research in the Antarctic and Arctic.

In 1999 I was awarded a Shackleton Scholarship to set up a database on South Georgia history. The object is to record the nature and whereabouts of photographs, journals and artefacts relating to South Georgia so that they are available for research and do not become lost. The majority of items relate to the whaling industry and the expeditions of Sir Ernest Shackleton.   

I edit newsletters for two organisations connected with southern regions: 
                                    The British Antarctic Survey Club  www.antarctica.ac.uk/basclub  
                                    The South Georgia Association      www.southgeorgiaassociation.org 

I am a Trustee of the Countryside Restoration Trust. This is a charity, set up by my fellow Telegraph writer Robin Page, that aims to show that profitable farming, attractive countryside and abundant wildlife can co-exist. One way the Trust demonstrates these aims is by purchasing intensively farmed land and changing to a more wildlife-friendly management regime.