Derek Goodwin

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Derek Goodwin (actually Richard Patrick Goodwin ; born February 26, 1920 in Woking , Surrey , † May 14, 2008 ) was an English ornithologist and author of bird identification books.

Live and act

In June 1941, Goodwin served as a rifleman with the 149th Anti-Tank Regiment in the Royal Artillery in Egypt . In September of the same year he witnessed the siege of Tobruk in Libya . In the winter of 1942/1943 he was transferred to the Middle East Pigeon Service (pigeon service of the Middle East), which was stationed in Maadi Camp in Egypt. It was here that Goodwin's interest in birds matured. He made many notes and diaries about his bird watching in North Africa, all of which were lost during a flash flood.

In August 1945 he returned to England. In September 1946 he received an assistant position at the Natural History Museum in London. In the early 1970s he moved to the bird department of the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring as a permanent employee .

In 1965 he took part in the Harold Hall expedition in Australia, where he discovered the subspecies Petrophassa albipennis boothi ​​of the white- mirrored pigeon . In the following years he accompanied David Snow to Brazil, where field studies were carried out and museum specimens were collected. Goodwin had large aviaries in his garden in Virginia Water , where he first bred the jay in 1954 . For this he received the Avicultural Society's Award .

In 1972 he received the Union Medal of the British Ornithologists' Union for his ornithological work , of which he had been a member since 1950 and worked on the executive committee from 1963 to 1966. In 1959 he became a corresponding member of the American Ornithologists' Union . In 1976 he was awarded the American William F. Hollander Merit Award Medal . Although Goodwin had never learned German in school, he was able to teach this language to himself and thus understand German books on ethology and ornithology. In 1977 he was elected a corresponding member of the German Ornithological Society . He was also a member and honorary member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds . However, since he disagreed with some aspects of the politics of this society, in particular the lack of protective measures for the golden and Amherst pheasants introduced into rural England , the culling of black-headed ducks and the reintroduction of certain bird of prey species such as the hawk or the sea ​​eagle , he resigned his membership.

Goodwin authored several popular identification books on birds, including Pigeons and Doves of the World (1967), Crows of the World (1976), and Estrildid Finches of the World (1982). He also published the works Bird Behavior (1961), Domestic Birds (1965), Birds of Man's World (1978) and the collection of poems Bird Room Ballads (1969) with Pat Hall .

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personal data
SURNAME Goodwin, Derek
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goodwin, Richard Patrick (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English ornithologist and author of bird identification books
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Woking , Surrey
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 2008