The 2011 Elliott Coues Award is presented to Timothy Birkhead for his outstanding contributions to ornithology through his pioneering work on sperm competition and post-copulatory sexual selection in birds, his long term studies of seabirds, magpies and zebra finches, and his many books about birds written for both professional and lay audiences. Dr. Birkhead is a British behavioral ecologist who studies promiscuity and sperm competition in birds. His work has helped to re-shape our understanding of avian mating systems, and his unique combination of studies focusing on both free-living and captive birds has done much to shape modern ornithology.