After completing his DPhil in 1963, Nelson travelled with his wife to several uninhabited islands in the Galápagos Islands to continue his research on seabirds,[1] primarily studying blue-footed, masked and red-footed boobies.[4] The couple lived in a tent and went naked for an entire year while studying the booby and frigate-bird populations of the islands.[2] At one point, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited the islands, and invited the Nelsons to lunch aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia;[A] Nelson recalled attending the lunch "in patched shorts liberally splattered with albatross vomit".[2] Prince Philip, also a seabird enthusiast, took some of Nelson's research diaries back to England with him to keep them safe from Ecuadorian customs officials, and later returned them to Nelson at Buckingham Palace.[1]
Nelson conducted pioneering fieldwork on the habits and communication methods of gannets and boobies; among his key hypotheses was the suggestion that gannets use a gesture known as "skypointing" to warn mates that they are about to leave the nest. As Scottish Field Magazine noted: "He interpreted and described the fascinating non-verbal communication of gannets. As a zoology lecturer, he amused and inspired thousands of Aberdeen University students over many years with his 'skypointing' and 'beak fencing'."[4][5][6][7] He was the author of an authoritative 1,000-page monograph on boobies and gannets,[5] including a volume on Pelecaniformes and a more general volume on seabird biology and ecology.[4]
Academic career
In 1969, Nelson became a lecturer in zoology at Aberdeen University, and taught there until his retirement in 1985.[2] He published a number of highly regarded ornithological monographs and textbooks, appeared on numerous television and radio programmes, made several nature documentaries and helped pioneer high-speed photography techniques for imaging birds in flight.[1] He furthermore wrote a number of books for general audiences, including a 2013 memoir of his time on the Galápagos Islands.[1] He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1982 and was appointed MBE in 2006.[1]
He was also a key founder and important supporter of the Scottish Seabird Centre, of which he was a charity trustee from 1997 to 2012. In 2013 he was appointed as the centre's Special Ornithological Advisor. The centre flew its flag at half mast upon his death.[4][8]
Personal life
Nelson married June Davison in 1960; she survived him, as did their twin children, Simon and Becky, and two grandchildren.[2][6] Nelson spent most of his later years in Scotland, latterly in the town of Kirkcudbright, and enjoyed boating, hill walking and birdwatching in his spare time.[1][6]
Nelson died of a genetic heart defect at his home in Kirkcudbright in June 2015.[6] Nelson's "green burial" was conducted at Roucan Loch outside Dumfries.[6] He outlived all three of his siblings.[6]
The Atlantic Gannet. Great Yarmouth: Fenix Books Ltd, Norfolk, 2002, ISBN0-9541191-0-X
Pelicans, cormorants and their relatives: Pelecanidae, Sulidae, Phalacrocoracidae, Anhingidae, Fregatidae, Phaethontidae (also: Pelicans, Cormorants and their Allies). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN0-19-857727-3
^"Having heard of this intrepid couple, the Duke of Edinburgh, President of the WWF (now the World Wide Fund for Nature), ordered the royal yacht Britannia to drop anchor off the Galapagos."[3]
^The "then unknown, jungle tree-top nesting Abbott’s booby which breeds nowhere else in the world..."[4]
^"There are certain birds, or often groups of birds, which are associated with an individual researcher.... For members of the Sulidae, the gannets and boobies the name is Dr. J Bryan Nelson ... Since 1964, when his first publication on Connex appeared, Dr. Nelson has studied almost all species of the genus Sula." The books were characterized as a "twin tour de force" that should be ranked among classic ornothological studies.[9]
^Originally published as Seabirds: Their biology and ecology. London/New York: Hamlyn, 1980, ISBN978-0-600-38227-0.
^This book is an autobiographical account of Nelson and his wife's time on Bass Rock, and includes the first known photograph of an Abbott’s booby on page 115.[10]