K. C. Halafoff

K. C. Halafoff was a White Emigre Russian and Australian poet and ornithologist interested in the musicology of bird song.

Halafoff was born in 1902 in Moscow. After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia he served with the White Army. In 1920 he moved to Yugoslavia where he continued his interrupted studies and graduated from Belgrade University. After the Second World War he fled to Germany where he lived until moving to Australia in 1949. He published his poetry in various Russian emigre publications in Europe and Australia; one of his contributions being an essay on musical aspects of Boris Pasternak's language, published in a Russian literary review in Munich. [http://mek.oszk.hu/03900/03955/03955.pdf Gloria Victis 1956: The response of poets throughout the world to the Hungarian fight for freedom of 1956] ]

Halafoff studied the complex vocalisations of Superb Lyrebirds in Australia, especially in Sherbrooke Forest. Articles and notes he wrote about lyrebirds and other birds in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s include: [ [http://home.vicnet.net.au/~donvrac/books.htm#Lyrebirds Sherbrooke Forest Bibliography: Lyrebirds] ]

* 1958 – Lyrebirds of Sherbrooke. "Victorian Naturalist" 74(11): 157-63.
* 1958 – Sherbrooke Diary. "Victorian Naturalist" 75(7): 105-112.
* 1959 – A Lyrebird dancing in a pool. "Emu" 59: 220.
* 1959 – Musical analysis of the lyrebird`s song. "Victorian Naturalist" 75: 169-78.
* 1959 – The range of the lyrebird`s song. "Victorian Naturalist" 76: 121.
* 1961 – Writing down a lyrebird`s song. "Victorian Naturalist" 77: 335-338, 359-363.
* 1961 – Notes on the lyrebird`s song. "Victorian Naturalist" 78: 79-81.
* 1962 – A strange duet. "Emu" 62: 62.
* 1964 – Audiospectrographic analysis of the lyrebird`s song. "Victorian Naturalist" 80: 304-12.
* 1968 – A survey of birds’ music. "Emu" 68: 21-40.
* 1970 – Notes of Lyrebird dialects. "Victorian Naturalist" 78: 1.

References