Peter Holden intended to become a professional ornithologist from the age of eight and joined the staff of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1969. Father of Andy Holden, Peter and Andy worked collaboratively to produce Natural Selection for Artangel in 2017, which was a comprehensive look at nests and egg collecting.
As one of the UK’s leading ornithologists and conversationalists, Holden worked for the RSPB for 45 years and built the Young Ornithologist Club into the largest wildlife club in the world. He was regularly featured as ‘the bird man’ on Blue Peter and wrote several books including the RSPB Handbook of British Birds, the RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildife and Birds: their Hidden World.