John Hornbuckle (1 Viewer)

I've seen it reported on Twitter that Jon Hornbuckle - a top world lister - has passed away. I can't say I knew the guy (although I think we met once or twice) but a friend who knew him quite well has asked me to find out what happened. By all accounts, he was a good bloke and top birder.

John Cantelo said:

I've seen it reported on Twitter that Jon Hornbuckle - a top world lister - has passed away. I can't say I knew the guy (although I think we met once or twice) but a friend who knew him quite well has asked me to find out what happened. By all accounts, he was a good bloke and top birder.

Click to expand...

"Jon was involved in a serious car accident in the South of France which left him with complete and seemingly irreversible memory loss and worse." quoted from Richard Fairbank's blog. Seems like his injuries proved fatal. RIP Jon

Oh dear, I knew John well, he came with us on a trip for Cambodian Laughingthrush some years ago and was good company. I'd often call him for a 'what's next' or to see what he'd added to his huge list.

A not well known snippet is that John was a class mate of British politician Ken Clarke.

RIP, John.

John Cantelo said:

I've seen it reported on Twitter that Jon Hornbuckle - a top world lister - has passed away. I can't say I knew the guy (although I think we met once or twice) but a friend who knew him quite well has asked me to find out what happened. By all accounts, he was a good bloke and top birder.

Click to expand...

John, for years now, Jon was not just 'a top World lister' but THE top World lister and one of the few that posted a list of species he'd actually seen not simply heard.

I suppose the nature of the hobby, increases risk of accidents during travelling but this is the second, TOP lister, to be lost in a road accident, not many will need to be reminded of Phoebe Snetsinger, killed in madagascar whilst she was the top, World lister. Phoebe was the first birder to surpass 8000 species, Jon, I'd hoped, would take it much further and I'd often ask him wheh he was going to get a move on and be the first past 10,000 species, sadly, he won't do that now and Surfbids has his list at 9600 species.



A

RIP Jon, very sad news and a real character lost, it was nice to see a Brit as the top world lister for many years now.
I did a number of trips where we met, the most memorable being to Mussau in PNG where all our gear was stolen including the bins, and Jon was absolutely ropable, even though we managed to ransom most of it back again.....

RIP.
I e-mailed with him about various plans to go birding but in the end our plans never matched. I remember him as a top lister that actually cared about writing trip reports... a rare happening about 8000+ listers. So I hope that Jon's good example (sharing is caring) is the way to go for future birders / top listers.

Sad. RIP Jon.

sicklebill said:

RIP Jon, very sad news and a real character lost, it was nice to see a Brit as the top world lister for many years now.
I did a number of trips where we met, the most memorable being to Mussau in PNG where all our gear was stolen including the bins, and Jon was absolutely ropable, even though we managed to ransom most of it back again.....

Click to expand...

Indeed, the memorable for all the wrong reasons infamous trip to Mussau. Along with yourself, Jon, Keith Turner, Neil Bostock and myself we saw some great birds. Being robbed wasn’t something we’d bargained for though so sharing two pairs of bins between five of us wasn’t very practical. I also lost all my photos of the birds on Mussau including photos of the yet to be split at the time Mussau Triller on the nest.
Another part of the story though Phil was when we got back to the mainland Jon went shopping for new rucksacks and bought Neil and himself one. Jon was chuffed to bits with his bargain bag from Kavieng but once he’d put his few bits of remaining valuables in the bag and lifted it up to put on his back the strap broke with the weight......I won’t repeat Jon’s brief but descriptive words here but we all laughed as the bag fell to the floor and said happen next........ a few weeks later our boat capsized off the Solomons ....
Lots of happy memories of Jon, I offered to help him write his book many times but that won’t happen now sadly. Goodbye mate...

I knew him as one of the elders at the Sheffield Bird Study Group when I was cutting my birding teeth in the early 80’s. Recall a series of lectures he gave based on his travels to far-flung destinations. One in particular about Japan I recall clearly - probably the first time I’d heard of Steller’s Sea Eagle and seeing photos of flocks of them stood on the ice was fantastic. Apparently he used to work for what was then British Steel or some similar company, a job that involved lots of travel.

Apart from his global listing, he also contributed greatly to ornithology in the local area and was heavily involved with local atlas work and avifaunas.

RIP