John Buxton -The Redstart. (1 Viewer)

[moose1991]

Has anyone got a copy?
I see they're rather expensive on the second book websites.
I was wondering if anyone knows a bit about John Buxton's background.
He studied the Redstart whilst a Pow in WW2.
I wondered if the book mentions anything about where & how he was taken prisoner?

 

[colonelboris]

Has anyone got a copy?
I see they're rather expensive on the second book websites.
I was wondering if anyone knows a bit about John Buxton's background.
He studied the Redstart whilst a Pow in WW2.
I wondered if the book mentions anything about where & how he was taken prisoner?

There's a bit about him in one of my books - I think it is POW by Adrian Gilbert, but I've misplaced it, so couldn't rightly say. I do know that it was done in Stalag Luft III (the largest POW camp in Germany for airmen and the site of the Great Escape). He had quite a group of people observing the birds and the idea was taken up by several other groups, who published monographs on other species. Apparently, it was one of the most in-depth observations of a bird, which is not surprising as many of the inmates had very little to do for anything up to five or six years...
I had a look through another few books, but didn't see anything, but I'll keep looking.

 

[colonelboris]

Ah, it would appear it wasn't Luft III (Sagan), but VIB, the site of the "Warburg Wire Job" where 80 POWs made ladders and charged the wire with three getting home.
Nice article here which mentions him on another POW ornithologist:
http://www.field-studies-council.org/fieldstudies/documents/vol9.4_263.pdf

 

[moose1991]

cheers Boris, I didn't think he'd be in a Luft camp as that was for airmen ,he was Army, but that sounds right he'd be in an Oflag as they were for officers.
Thanks for that link , I've a thread about birdwatching in WW2 on another forum & that will be a good one to add to that.

 

[colonelboris]

cheers Boris, I didn't think he'd be in a Luft camp as that was for airmen ,he was Army, but that sounds right he'd be in an Oflag as they were for officers.
Thanks for that link , I've a thread about birdwatching in WW2 on another forum & that will be a good one to add to that.

Quite alright - glad to be of help.
On the note of Oflags / Stalag Luft, airmen were sometimes held in Oflags and occasionally, soldiers and sailors in other types of camp. F'rinstance, Colditz being an Oflag held officers (and on rare occasions, other ranks) from all three branches of the services. Especially at the beginning and end of the war, things got a bit mixed up, not to mention the mixing in the Dulags where captives were processed for sending onto other camps.
Cheers!

Tony

 

[Watts]

The Editors' Preface in The Redstart refers to camps in Bavaria and mentions three other naturalists by name: Richard Purchon (swallows and field-crickets), Peter Conder (goldfinches) and George Waterston (wrynecks).

Buxton himself says his redstarts were studied in 1941 "near the left bank of the river Salzach where it passes the former Archbishop's Palace at Laufen in Bavaria" and in 1943 "near the left bank of the small river Altmühl where it flows through the former valley of the Danube a little below Eichstätt, also in Bavaria."

Bill

 

[Tom Lawson]

Talking to the late Peter Conder years ago he spent a lot of time studying Goldfinches while a POW,but never wrote-up the details, unlike John Buxton.