Stephen Moss’s obituary of the ornithologist Ian Wallace rightly highlighted Ian’s written contributions to the Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic, a groundbreaking project that I co-authored.
But Ian’s contribution to it went much further through his versatile artwork, amounting to 70 colour plates of waders, terns, skimmers, cuckoos, swifts, larks, pipits and warblers, spread through four of the nine volumes.
His watercolour depiction of birds was exquisite, conjuring up the unique character or “jizz” of a species. He distilled a lifetime of acute observation and shared it with customary generosity.
