Jim Flegg

James John Maitland Flegg, OBE (23 April 1937 – 7 May 2024) was a British horticulturalist, broadcaster, ornithologist and writer on bird-related matters.

Life and career
Flegg was a zoology graduate of Imperial College London and spent much of his subsequent professional career working in horticulture at the East Malling Research Station.

Flegg also had a lifelong interest in ornithology, having joined the Rochester and District Natural History Society as a junior member. As an ornithologist, he became well-known, having become president of Kent Ornithological Society in 1977, and was Director of the British Trust for Ornithology. He was a national household name because of his role as a presenter on the Coastal Ways and Country Ways television programmes.

Flegg was a bird ringer and ringed over 30,000 birds. Among the books Flegg authored are the Photographic Field Guide: Birds of Australia, and a number of books designed to interest children in living things from an early age.

Flegg died at home on 7 May 2024, at the age of 87.