Roy Dennis

Roy Dennis was born in Hampshire, a country child who collected newts, birds’ eggs and things. ‘In those days we weren’t inhibited! It is now illegal of course. . . I knew an old doctor who edited the Lancet and he was helpful to me in the beginning, while my scout master had a set of the Handbook of British Birds. Every time I saw a new bird I would borrow the relevant volume and made sure I knew everything about it. All the equipment you needed was a pair of binoculars (and later a telescope) and a notebook and pen – not a lot of kit for a kid to acquire.’

‘Mentors are so important and George Waterston was hugely influential’. In 1959 Roy was appointed an assistant warden at Fair Isle Bird Observatory the tiny island halfway between Orkney and Shetland which was, and still is, a mecca for birding. In the September, George arrived on the island. ‘He told me that a pair of ospreys had begun to nest again in Scotland and asked if I would be interested in working there next spring. . . ‘

Roy jumped at the chance to warden the eyrie in Strathspey and the next year, as Waterston drove him north one night to take up his post, they stopped off at the Star Hotel in Kingussie to collect a storm-bound Leach’s petrel to take and release. ‘That was my first Highland bird!’