Bob Swann

Bob Swann’s mother maintains that his interest in birds arose from her taking him to feed the ducks in the parks of his native Edinburgh. True or not, he has certainly come a long way since then. He spent 30 years at the chalk face, ostensibly teaching geography, but he was also indulging himself in an astonishing range of long-term ornithological research projects while influencing a whole generation of schoolchildren along the way.

‘I went to George Heriot’s where the school bird club was run by senior pupils, amongst them Harry Dott, who talked me and my mates out of egg collecting into bird surveys. Bobby Smith directed us to nest recording for the British Trust for Ornithology while Mike Everett of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds also got us working on conservation projects at Aberlady Bay’.

‘We also joined the Edinburgh Natural History and the local branch of the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. I don’t think the more senior members quite approved of us but if we had an adult chaperone they allowed us to join their summer outings which broadened our horizons. And then, much as I hate to admit it, I had to finish my education in England when my father was posted to London for three years. I hated it, but Susan Cowdy of the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire Naturalists’ Trust took me in hand as a trainee ringer, and expanded my interests from just birds to plants, insects and things. I also managed to join a Brathay Expedition to Foula studying skuas. The following summer I volunteered as a warden at the Osprey camp in Strathspey before going to Aberdeen University to study geography in 1969.’