If losing Ray Turley was not enough, further devastating news came when I heard that Ian Prophet had also died last week - on Tuesday. Like Ray, Ian will be very well known on twitching circles, and although he was a very quiet and unassuming kind of guy, he was extremely well liked.
Ian was originally from Somerset and had spent time living in both Wiltshire and Dorset during his career. For over 20 years he lived in Poole, where he was to be a very regular feature of the 'Portland scene'. Like many of us, he also loved Scilly, and after he became diagnosed with cancer in 2008, he relocated to Cornwall and spent the last couple of years birding frenetically in that county.
Ian battled with his illness until the bitter end. Our last meeting was in October of last year, when I combined a visit to both Scilly and West Cornwall - he was his typical cheerful self despite his difficulties. A real birding gentleman lost.....
Please send any tributes to Ian to myself at LGREUK400@aol.com
Lee Evans
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About Me
- Lee G R Evans
- Amersham, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
- I have been birding since 1969 but became obsessed with 'twitching' in 1974 and haven't looked back since. Have driven over 1.3 million miles in pursuit of rare birds in the UK, where to date I have recorded 588 species in Britain and Ireland. I also have a fascination for the Birds of the Western Palearctic, where I have currently recorded 880 of the 1,064 species ever recorded. I am widely travelled in North America, as well as in Africa and Asia, and have written at least 29 books on my chosen subject, including best-sellers ''Ultimate Site Guide to Scarcer British Birds' and 'Rare Birds in Britain 1800-1990'. Established the UK400 Club in 1981 to cater for the most obsessive of the British birding fraternity and now concentrate on online publishing, via the www.uk400clubonline.co.uk website. Record Birding achievements include recording 386 species in Britain & Ireland in 1996 and 627+ in the Western Palearctic in 2008