Ian Wallace (ornithologist)

D. Ian M. Wallace (known as Ian Wallace or D.I.M. Wallace,^[1][2][3] or by his initials DIMW; born before 1935^[4]) is a British birder, author and artist. He lives in Staffordshire.

D.I.M. Wallace was the second chairman of the British Birds Rarities Committee^[5] and was a contributing author to The Birds of the Western Palearctic.

In 1963, Wallace was among a party of birders,^[6] led by Guy Mountfort^[7] and including Julian Huxley,^[7] George Shannon^[6] and, James Ferguson-Lees,^[6] which made the first ornithological expedition to Azraq in Jordan.^[6] The expedition's recommendations eventually led to the creation of the Azraq Wetland Reserve and other protected areas.^[8] Papers from the expedition are in the United Kingdom's National Archives.^[9] He identified at least four species previously unknown in Nigeria.^[10]

He is the Honorary Life President of Flamborough Ornithological Group since 2000), and of Flamborough Bird Observatory.^[11]

Wallace has appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's Saving Species, discussing his October 1960 observations of the visible migration of birds over London, on their 50th anniversary.^[12]

He has been described as "one of the very top ornithologists in the UK",^[13] "one of the great names of British bird-watching",^[14] by the BBC as "a pioneer of ornithology [in the United Kingdom]",^[12] and by Mark Cocker as both "one of the godfathers of modern birding"^[4] and "the grand old man of birds".^[15]

Bibliography

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• Discover Birds, Deutsch (1979), ISBN 0-233-97100-9
• Birdwatching In The Seventies, Macmillan (1981), ISBN 0-333-30026-2
• Watching birds (illustrated by Alan Harris, Ian Jackson), Usborne (1982), ISBN 0-86020-655-6
• Birds of Prey of Britain and Europe (paintings by Ian Willis), Oxford University Press (1983). ISBN 0-19-217729-X
• Beguiled by Birds, Christopher Helm (2004), ISBN 0-7136-6535-1 (publishers' page)

Contributions

• A field guide to the birds of Britain and Europe by Roger Peterson, Guy Mountfort, P.A.D. Hollom. Collins, 1965
  • new edition of 1954 work; revised and enlarged in collaboration with I.J. Ferguson-Lees and Wallace
  • 1971 impression: ISBN 0-00-212020-8
  • 2004 edition: ISBN 978-0-00-719234-2

Significant articles

• Snipe and Grouse: English Bird Names in Birding World, Vol. 6 No. 4 pp. 164–5 ISSN 0969-6024

References

External links

• Some reminiscences of Musselburgh, 1947-51 - article by Wallace, about his schoolday birding
• Guardian review of Beguiled...
• Slimbridge gathering for veterans of British birding (includes 2012 photograph of Wallace)
• Wallace officially opens new Heligoland Trap in Buckton, East Yorkshire, 19 May 2012 (video)