Nikolaas Tinbergen

Nikolaas Tinbergen was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who spent decades observing how animals act and why. In 1951 he published The Study of Instinct, a book that shaped the field. By 1973 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for discoveries about the organization and triggers of behavior patterns in animals — work that made him one of the founders of modern ethology. In the 1960s he turned to film, collaborating with Hugh Falkus on wildlife documentaries: Signals for Survival won the Italia prize in 1969 and an American blue ribbon in…