Richard Cannings works as a consulting biologist assessing endangered species and organizing broad-scale bird population surveys, among other projects. He teaches field ecology at the University of British Columbia and was curator of the Cowan Vertebrate Museum at the university for fifteen years. He is the author of An Enchantment of Birds, The Rockies: A Natural History, and, with Sydney Cannings, British Columbia: A Natural History and The B.C. Roadside Naturalist. He lives in Naramata, British Columbia.