Ian Wallace
Quick Facts
Biography
D. IanM. Wallace (known as Ian Wallace or D.I.M. Wallace, or by his initials DIMW; born before 1935) 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 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, which 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 is the Honorary Life President of Flamborough Ornithological Group since 2000), andof Flamborough Bird Observatory.
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.
He has been 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 [in the United Kingdom]", and by Mark Cocker as both "one of the godfathers of modern birding" and "the grand old man of birds".