Mark Brazil is a widely travelled field ornithologist and an experienced writer. He received a doctorate for his studies of the behavioural ecology of the Whooper Swan in Scotland and Iceland. His interest in swans has continued and he spends part of each winter studying them in Hokkaido, where he is currently Professor of Biodiversity and Conservation at Rakuno Gakuen University, Hokkaido. His main research interests have centred around East Asian birds, particularly the Japanese avifauna.

Mark is the author of The Birds of Japan (Helm, 1991), The Whooper Swan (Poyser, 2003), Field Guide to Birds of East Asia (Helm, 2009) and Field Guide to the Birds of Japan (Helm, 2019). He has written research and review papers on a wide range of species and has contributed a regular column on natural history to The Japan Times newspaper continuously since 1982.