After a BSc on trout in electric fields, and a PhD on mountain hare ecology at Aberdeen, in 1960 John joined Ecology Division, DSIR, New Zealand, to study hares at night. To occupy the day, the starling study began in 1970. Apart from papers on hares, as an old-style naturalist he has published on grouse, swallows, thrushes, blackbirds, wallabies, butterflies, fleas, ticks, cats, pigeons, possums, rats, by-the-wind sailors, bird-nest/plant mutualism, dandelions, lichens, wool-carder bees, harriers v. road-kill, moth evolution, and “Biogeographic theory and the number and habitat of moas”.