Ian Wallace (ornithologist)


Donald Ian Mackenzie Wallace, known as Ian Wallace, D.I.M. Wallace, or by his initials DIMW, was a British birder, author and artist.

Early life

Wallace was born on 14 December 1933 in Norfolk, England, to Scottish parents. He was educated at Loretto School, near Edinburgh. Early in the 1950s, he undertook National Service with the King's African Rifles in Kenya.

Career

Wallace was the second chairman of the British Birds Rarities Committee and was a contributing author to The Birds of the Western Palearctic.
In 1963, Wallace was among a party of birders, led by Guy Mountfort and including Julian Huxley, George Shannon and, James Ferguson-Lees, that made the first ornithological expedition to Azraq in Jordan. The expedition's recommendations eventually led to the creation of the Azraq Wetland Reserve and other protected areas. Papers from the expedition are in the United Kingdom's National Archives. He identified at least four species previously unknown in Nigeria.
He was the Honorary Life President of Flamborough Ornithological Group, and of Flamborough Bird Observatory.
Wallace 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.
He was described as "one of the very top ornithologists in the UK", "one of the great names of British bird-watching", by the BBC as "a pioneer of ornithology ", and by Mark Cocker as both "one of the godfathers of modern birding" and "the grand old man of birds".
Wallace lived in Staffordshire. He died on 4 November 2021, at the age of 87. A five-page obituary was published in British Birds.

Contributions

Significant articles

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