John Warham
John Warham was an Australian and New Zealand photographer and ornithologist notable for his research on seabirds, especially petrels.
Warham was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, in England, and educated at King Edward VI Grammar School at Retford, Nottinghamshire. From 1940 he served in the British Army during the Second World War in Europe, being demobilised in 1946. He moved to Australia from England in 1953. Following much photography and study of Australian birds, and the publication of illustrated papers on their biology in the Emu, he returned to England to take a doctorate at the University of Durham.
Warham then moved to Christchurch, New Zealand where he was a reader in zoology at the University of Canterbury until 1987. He led several biological expeditions to the New Zealand subantarctic islands. He received a Doctor of Science degree from Durham in 1985.
He joined the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union in 1963 and was elected a Fellow of the RAOU in 1992. Also in 1992, he was awarded the RAOU's D.L. Serventy Medal, which recognises excellence in published work on birds in the Australasian region. In 1998 he was elected a Fellow of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand. In the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to ornithology.
