John S. Ash

John Sidney Ash (born May 26, 1925 in Gosforth , Northumberland , † January 6, 2014 ) was a British ornithologist . He was interested in the avifauna in the Horn of Africa , especially in Somalia , Eritrea and Ethiopia .

Life

Ash was the son of Sidney and Kathleen Ash, nee Denley. In 1945 he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Entomology from the University of Durham . From 1945 to 1948 he served in the Royal Navy . In 1948 he was awarded the Diploma of the Imperial College in Entomology at Imperial College London , where he in 1952 with the thesis A study of the Mallophaga and other ectoparasites of birds, with Particular reference to Their ecology for Ph.D. received his doctorate. In November 1951 he married the zoologist Jonquil Gudgeon. From this marriage a daughter was born.

From 1951 to 1960, Ash worked as an ecologist at the ICI Game Research Station (now Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust) at Fordingbridge in Hampshire . From 1960 to 1969 he was research director of Game Research Association, an association of farmers, landowners and other persons working for the conservation of wild game use. From 1969 to 1977 he was head of the medical-ecological department of Naval Medical Research Unit 3 in Addis Ababa , Ethiopia. From 1978 to 1982 he was an ornithologist for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Somalia.

Ash co-authored field guides The Birds of Somalia (with John E. Miskell) from 1998 and Birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea (with John Atkins) from 2009.

Ash discovered several new bird taxa , including the Ankobergirlitz ( Crithagra ankoberensis ), the subspecies Turdoides squamulata carolinae of Schuppenschwatzhäherlings , which he named after his daughter Caroline, the subspecies Iduna pallida alulensis of Blass mocker , the subspecies Acrocephalus scirpaceus avicenniae the reed warbler , the 1982 by Peter Colston described Ashlerche ( Mirafra ashi ) and Ploceus victoriae , which is now considered a hybrid between the black- headed weaver ( Ploceus melanocephalus ) and the reed weaver ( Ploceus castanops ). In May 1968, he discovered along with Christian Érard the Sidamo Lark , which was first described in 1975, but now considered synonymous with the Somali spur Lark is considered. In 1995 he was one of the first to describe the Nechisar nightjar ( Caprimulgus solala ). In 1989 he succeeded in rediscovering the yellow-throated giraffe ( Crithagra flavigula ), a species that has been believed to have been lost since 1886.

In 1967 Ash was awarded the Tucker Medal from the British Trust for Ornithology .

Ash died on January 6, 2014, three days after his wife.

literature

• John E. Pemberton: Who's Who in Ornithology , Buckingham Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-95149-658-9 , pp. 25-26
• Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds. Christopher Helm, London, 2003, p. 30.
• Nigel J. Collar , GR Potts: Obituary In: Ibis , British Ornithologists' Union, 156 (4), pp. 907-910. doi : 10.1111 / ibi.12187 , July 29, 2014, accessed November 30, 2018.
• Nigel J. Collar: John Ash obituary . The Guardian February 9, 2014.
• David Pearson: Obituary John Sidney Ash (1925-2014) In: Scopus . A publication of the Bird Committee of the East Africa Natural History Society, Vol. 34, January 2015, pp. 62-63