Fisher, James Maxwell McConnell

James Maxwell McConnell Fisher was a British author, editor, broadcaster, naturalist and ornithologist. He was also a leading authority on Gilbert White and made over 1,000 radio and television broadcasts on natural history subjects.

Fisher was the son of Kenneth Fisher (also a keen ornithologist and headmaster of Oundle School from 1922 to 1945); his maternal uncle was the Cheshire naturalist Arnold Boyd. He was educated at Eton, and began studying medicine at Magdalen College, Oxford, but later switched to zoology. He took part in the Oxford Arctic expedition in 1933 as ornithologist.

After university he joined London Zoo as an assistant curator, and during the war studied rooks for the Ministry of Agriculture. He later became a leading member of the RSPB and IUCN, a member of the National Parks Commission and vice-chairman of the Countryside Commission. Fisher presented the BBC Radio series Birds in Britain from its inception in March 1951 until its end, twelve years later.

As well as writing his own books, he was an editor of Collins' New Naturalist series. He was the resident ornithologist in the regular Nature Parliament series broadcast in the 1950s on BBC radio as part of Children's Hour.

He was awarded the British Trust for Ornithology's Bernard Tucker Medal in 1966