Audrey Eagle

Audrey Lily Eagle (née Brodey; 30 October 1925 – 27 November 2022) was a New Zealand botanical illustrator, whose work mainly focused on New Zealand's distinctive trees and shrubs. As the author and illustrator of the two volume Eagle's Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand, Eagle made a notable contribution to New Zealand botany.

Early life and education Eagle was born Audrey Lily Brodey on 30 October 1925 in Timaru, New Zealand, to English parents. After primary school in New Zealand, her family moved to England in 1933, and she attended the following secondary schools from 1936 to 1943: Horsham High School for Girls, Fulham County Secondary School for Girls, and Banbury County School. She participated in numerous botanical society field trips and collated a personal collection of botanical specimens.

Later life and death After living in Ngāruawāhia for many years, where Harold Eagle was the town clerk, the Eagles moved to New Plymouth in about 1982. Harold died there in 1988, and in 1996 Eagle moved to Dunedin, residing at Macandrew Bay. Eagle died in Mosgiel on 27 November 2022, at the age of 97.

Publications

Eagle's Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand in Colour (1975) Eagle's 100 Shrubs and Climbers of New Zealand (1978) Eagle's 100 Trees of New Zealand (1978) Eagle's Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand (1982) Eagle's Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand (2006; two volumes) Supplement, Additional Notes (2006) Second Supplement, Historical Notes (2014) The Essential Audrey Eagle (2013)

Honours and awards In 1976, Eagle received a Nature Conservation Council Citation, and she also won two Watties Book of the Year Awards (now the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards): third prize in 1976 for Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand, and second prize in 1983 for Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand: Second Series. and in the same year became a Distinguished Life Member of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. In 2007, the 2006 two-volume edition of Eagle's Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand earned her the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction and the Booksellers Choice award. The University of Otago conferred an honorary doctor of science degree on her in Dunedin at a graduation ceremony on 4 May 2013.

In 2017, Eagle was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.