Raffael Winkler

Raffael Winkler was born in 1949 in Basel, Switzerland. Interested in birds since his early childhood, a stay at the Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat in the Camargue convinced him to study zoology. At the University of Basel he attended lectures in zoology, botany, palaeontology and psychology, and graduated with a PhD thesis on the pneumatisation of the skull roof in birds. The data for this study were collected at the ringing station at Col de Bretolet in the Swiss Alps, where he began...See more

Raffael Winkler was born in 1949 in Basel, Switzerland. Interested in birds since his early childhood, a stay at the Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat in the Camargue convinced him to study zoology. At the University of Basel he attended lectures in zoology, botany, palaeontology and psychology, and graduated with a PhD thesis on the pneumatisation of the skull roof in birds. The data for this study were collected at the ringing station at Col de Bretolet in the Swiss Alps, where he began a close co-operation with Lukas Jenni in the study of passerine moult, ageing and bird migration. Raffael was employed at the Swiss Ornithological Institute from 1975 to 1980, and managed the avifaunal information centre and developed outreach programs with amateur birdwatchers. During this time he was secretary of the Swiss Rarities Committee, and worked on The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Switzerland . In 1980 he was elected curator of the bird collection at the Natural History Museum, Basel, where he edited The Avifauna of Switzerland and carried on the Museum's own tradition in moult research. He retired in 2012 and now works as a voluntary ornithologist at the Basel Museum. See less