Harry Forbes Witherby, MBE, FZS, MBOU was a noted British ornithologist, author, publisher and founding editor of the magazine British Birds.
Alfred Newton FRS HFRSE was an English zoologist and ornithologist. Newton was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University from 1866 to 1907. Among his numerous publications were a four-volume Dictionary of Birds (1893–6), entries on ornithology in the Encyclopædia Britannica while also an editor of the journal Ibis from 1865 to 1870. In 1900 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Gold Medal of the Linnaean Society. He founded the British Ornithologists Union.
The slender-billed curlew is a bird in the wader family Scolopacidae. Isotope analysis suggests the majority of the former population bred in the Kazakh Steppe despite a record from the Siberian swamps, and was migratory, formerly wintering in shallow freshwater habitats around the Mediterranean. This species has occurred as a vagrant in western Europe, the Canary Islands, the Azores, Oman, Canada, and Japan. The slender-billed curlew was always a rare species and is feared extinct, with the last verifiable sighting being in 1995.
Frederick DuCane Godman DCL FRS FLS FGS FRGS FES FZS MRI FRHS was an English lepidopterist, entomologist and ornithologist. He was one of the twenty founding members of the British Ornithologists' Union. Along with Osbert Salvin, he is remembered for studying the fauna and flora of Central America.
Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE FRSE FZS FLS was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England.
Percy Roycroft Lowe was an English surgeon and ornithologist.
Janet Kear was an English ornithologist and conservationist who worked extensively on waterfowl and wrote several major works on ducks. She was the first woman to become president of the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU).
The British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC), established in 1959, is the national bird rarities committee for Britain. It assesses claimed sightings of bird species that are rarely seen in Britain, based on descriptions, photographs and video recordings submitted by observers. Its findings are published in an annual report in the journal British Birds.
Sir Arthur Landsborough Thomson FRSE PZS CB LLD was a Scottish medical researcher, mainly remembered as an amateur ornithologist and ornithological author and acknowledged expert on bird migration.
The Druridge Bay curlew was a curlew that was present in Druridge Bay, Northumberland in May 1998, whose species identification proved to be controversial. The bird was identified by its finder, and most others who saw it, as a first-summer slender-billed curlew, one of the rarest birds in the world; however, this identification provoked scepticism from experts. The bird was initially accepted as this species by the British Birds Rarities Committee and the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee - however, this identification was eventually rejected in 2013
Ibis, subtitled the International Journal of Avian Science, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the British Ornithologists' Union. It was established in 1859. Topics covered include ecology, conservation, behaviour, palaeontology, and taxonomy of birds. The editor-in-chief is Dominic J. McCafferty. The journal is published by Wiley-Blackwell in print and online. It is available free on the internet for institutions in the developing world through the OARE scheme.
Stanley Cramp was a British civil servant and ornithologist best known as the first Chief Editor of the encyclopaedic nine-volume handbook The Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP).
Devon Birds, known as the Devon Bird Watching & Preservation Society from its founding in 1928 until it as renamed in 2005, is one of the UK's regional ornithological societies.
The Godman-Salvin Medal is a medal of the British Ornithologists' Union awarded "to an individual as a signal honour for distinguished ornithological work." It was instituted in 1919 in the memory of Frederick DuCane Godman and Osbert Salvin.
The Union Medal is a medal of the British Ornithologists' Union, given "in recognition of eminent services to ornithology and to the Union and ornithology." From 2019 it is to be known as the "Janet Kear Union Medal", after Janet Kear, with a new medal design.
The Alfred Newton Lecture is an academic prize lecture awarded by the British Ornithologists' Union. It is named for Alfred Newton.
John Cordeaux, MBOU was one of the foremost English amateur naturalist and ornithologist of his day, known for his work with the British Association on bird migration.
