Blasius Hanf

He made observations of migrations in the alpine pass at Mariahof, studied bird behaviour, and collected specimens.

Hanf was the fifth child of the pharmacist Karl (d. 1817) in the monastery of St Lambrecht in Upper Styria.

While just nine, his father and at the age of eleven he went to school to Admont Abbey where his mother Elizabeth Zach (d. 1824) took him on a two-day journey by foot.

Mariahof forms a saddle in the eastern Alps and is a route for migratory birds.

He was made an honorary member of several ornithological associations and he received a golden cross of merit from the Austrian emperor.