John MacKinnon was Professor of Biodiversity Information at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. He spent eight years living in China and Hong Kong working on a number of conservation projects in China. He has published two other books on the country - Wild China and A Photoguide to the Birds of China. Among several other books on natural history of Asia, he is also the senior author of A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Bali.