Lukas Jenni was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1955 and became interested in birds as a boy. While studying biology at Basel University he became a volunteer at the Swiss Ornithological Institute and a ringer at the Col de Bretolet ringing station, where his interest in moult and ageing began while working with Raffael Winkler. His graduation study dealt with the morphology and ecology of the Great and Middle Spotted Woodpeckers. In 1979, he became head of the Swiss ringing scheme at the Swiss Ornithological Institute and gained his PhD in zoology with a study of the mass concentrations of Bramblings in winter in 1984. He became a lecturer at the University of Zurich in 1997 and a professor in 2013, and was appointed scientific director of the Swiss Ornithological Institute in 2000. His research focuses on bird migration and its ecophysiology, the ecophysiology of stress, and the moult of birds. He is also involved in many other projects at the Institute, and supervises studies in avian ecology and conservation.

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.

Preface

Chapter 1: Functions of the plumage
Chapter 2: Plumage maintenance and the need for plumage renewal
Chapter 3: The process of moult: feather growth, physiology, energetics and control of moult
Chapter 4: The effects of environmental conditions during moult on plumage quality and their consequences
Chapter 5: Fitting moult into the annual cycle: moult strategies

References
Index