Blaylock, Brian James   (1947 - 2022)

Born on 13 July 1947 at Rose Park, SA; died on 8 August 2022 in Adelaide, SA.

Before 1970 Brian had a variety of jobs and was an active member of the SA Field Naturalists Association and it's Botany Club. He collected plant specimens for the SA Herbarium from about 1963.

He was also volunteered with Max Waterman and his team of youg bird-banders.

He joined the Department of defence in 1970 as a computer trainee and moved to Canberra.

He moved back to Adelaide in 1984.

He remained with the government for many years, being promoted to senior positions and moving to the Information Technology Branch of the Department of Education before retiring in 2002.

Brian was a keen naturalist and ornithologist. He made more than 30 biological survey trips South Australia, and participated in banding programs for osprey, peregrine falcon and yellow-tailed black cockatoo. He was a volunteer with South Australia Museum for many years and from 2001 he participated in the curation of the bird collections, digitising and improving the standards of specimen information.

Brian was an enthusiastic member of several naturalists' organisations, including BirdLife Australia, the Field Naturalists Society of South Australia, and the South Australian Ornithological Association. For the latter he filled the role of Secretary for 18 years, his IT skills being called upon to maintain the web site and manage the Association's database of bird records.

He made a major contribution to recent editions of the Census of South Australian Vertebrates as co-author of the bird sections.

Other publications included a chapter of the Presidents of the South Australian Ornithological Association in Birds, birders and birdwatching 1899 - 1999 (2000) and A field list of the birds of South Australia (5th edition 2017). He contributed more than 2,300 plant specimens to the State Herbarium of South Australia and many thousands of bird records to the Biological Database of South Australia (BDBSA).

Source: Extracted from:
Murray Fagg, Pers.Comm. (2025)
https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P007437b.htm
Portrait Photo: 1966, M.Fagg.

Collecting localities for 'Blaylock, B.J.' from AVH (2025)

Data from 2,950 specimens