Timeline of Ornithology - 20th Century Late

20th Century Late

• 1950 – Rocket nets developed by the Wildfowl Trust for catching geese
• 1950 - Willi Hennig publishes Grundzüge einer Theorie der phylogenetischen Systematik in English Basic outline of a theory of phylogenetic systematics. This work, at first obscure and controversial, founds Cladistics and is mainsteam by 1980.
• 1951–1954 – The six volume Birds of the Soviet Union by GP Dementev and NA Gladkov published
• 1953 – Niko Tinbergen publishes The Herring Gull's World
• 1953 - Ornithologist Olivier Messiaen composes the orchestral work Réveil des oiseaux—based on birdsong in the Jura.
• 1954 – Protection of Birds Act 1954 in the UK prohibits the collection of birds eggs
• 1954 - The Heinz Sielmann film Zimmerleute des Waldes (Carpenters of the forest) shown on UK television with the title Woodpecker. It was a huge success.
• 1954 - First edition of Avian Physiology published By Paul D. Sturkie. The work related mainly to domestic birds and especially poultry but later editions of the work, now titled Sturkie's Avian Physiology include studies of wild birds.
• 1954 - Arthur Cain refers to the "circular overlaps" of Mayr (1942) as ring species in Animal species and evolution'
• 1954 - Richard Meinertzhagen publishes Birds of Arabia' based on the work of George Latimer Bates
• 1956 – First use of mist nets (invented in Japan) in the UK to trap birds
• 1957 - Frances and Frederick Hamerstrom publish Guide to Prairie Chicken Management. The ecological scatter pattern approach has broad signifiance in bird habitat conservation
• 1957 - G. Evelyn Hutchinson develops the niche concept
• 1959 - Charles Vaurie publishes The Birds of the Palearctic Fauna: a Systematic Reference
• 1959 - Humphrey-Parkes terminology for the description of plumage introduced
• 1960 - Max Schönwetter dies. His monumental Handbuch der Oologie is taken over by Wilhelm Meise
• 1961 - Nature photographer Sakae Tamura publishes Tamagawa no tori, (Birds of River Tama, Tokyo)

• 1961 - Eric Hosking publishes Bird Photography as a Hobby From this date bird photography becomes increasingly popular
• 1961 – William Homan Thorpe publishes Bird-Song. The biology of vocal communication and expression in birds pioneering the use of sound spectrography in bird studies.
• 1962 – Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, describing the ecological dangers of pesticides
• 1963 (-1968) David Armitage Bannerman begins publication of The Birds of the Atlantic Islands
• 1964 - The relationship between birds and dinosaurs is reexamined in what becomes known as the Dinosaur Renaissance
• 1967 – Publication of Radar Ornithology by Eric Eastwood
• 1967 - Edward O. Wilson and Robert H. MacArthur publish The Theory of Island Biogeography
• 1967 - Birds of prey aviary opens at Zoo de La Flèche
• 1968–1972 – First national breeding bird atlas project conducted in Britain and Ireland
• 1969 - Robert T. Paine first uses the term keystone species
• 1970 – The Atlas of Breeding Birds of the West Midlands by Lord and Munns, based on field work by members of the West Midland Bird Club, published by Collins, is the first to use systematic grid-based method for gathering of information.
• 1970 - Derek Ratcliffe discovers changes attributable to pesticides in egg breakage frequency and eggshell thickness in some British Birds and publishes a paper so titled in the Journal of Applied Ecology
• 1971-1973 - Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke combines many biological concepts in Die Lebensformen: Grundlagen zu einer universell gültigen biologischen Theorie in English, Life Forms: The basis for a universally valid biological theory. Birds, and Peruvian or South American birds especially figure prominently.
• 1972-75 - Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia (1967–1972) translated into English.
• 1973 - International Crane Foundation founded
• 1975 - Ramsar Convention (The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat) comes into force.
• 1975 - Rara aves Elizabeth V. Kozlova publishes The birds of zonal steppes and deserts of Central Asia
• 1975 - Victor Hasselblad tests the Hasselblad AB company 2000 camera at Nidingen, the only place in Sweden where the Black-legged Kittiwake nests
• 1976 – Publication of national bird atlases for Great Britain and Ireland, France and Denmark
• 1977 - EURING Data Bank (EDB) was established as a central repository for European ringing recovery records.
• 1981 – Sibley and Ahlquist use DNA-DNA hybridisation to determine degrees of genetic similarity between species. This leads to the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy of birds.
• 1977 - Publication of the first volume of The Birds of the Western Palearctic
• 1981 – Cyril A. Walker describes the Enantiornithes, a new subclass of fossil birds
• 1984 – Publication of The Atlas of Australian Birds
• 1984 - Umbrella species defined.
• 1986 - Jürgen Haffer combines allopatry, parapatry, refugia and superspecies in a holistic theory explaining speciation.
• 1987 - Sociedad de Ornitología Neotropical (SON)in English Neotropical Ornithological Society founded.
• 1990 – Discovery of the first poisonous bird, the Hooded Pitohui (Pitohui dichrous) by Jack Dumbacher
• 1990 - Leo Surenovich Stepanyan publishes Conspectus of the ornithological fauna of the USSR
• 1990 - Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History founded
• 1991 – First new species described without a skin as a type specimen. The Bulo Burti Boubou (Laniarius liberatus) of Somalia described as a new species on the basis of the DNA sequence from a feather.
• 1991 - A color atlas of avian anatomy by John McLelland explores the external features, skeleton, and body systems of birds
• 1992 – Publication of the Handbook of Birds of the World series starts
• 1992 - Avibase database commenced by Bird Studies Canada. At 2010 the database holds 5 million records of 10,000 species (22,000 subspecies) and has online World checklists, taxonomic notes and multilingual synonyms.
• 1993 - Vision, brain, and behavior in birds by H Philip Zeigler and Hans-Joachim Bischof published
• 1994 - Jonathan Weiner publishes The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
• 1995 – Hou Lianhai describes the Confuciusornis, a new subclass of birds, from a fossil found in the Jinzhou market, Liaoning, China
• 1997 – Use of stable Hydrogen isotope signatures in feathers to identify origin of birds.
• 1997 - The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds published
• 1998 – Discovery of gut reduction before migration in Godwits.
• 1998 - Alison J. Stattersfield, Michael J. Crosby, Adrian J. Long, and David C. Wege publish Endemic Bird Areas of the World: Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation
• 1998 - The Life of Birds, a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, is transmitted to millions of viewers in the UK.
• 1998 - Katala Foundation commences the Philippine Cockatoo Conservation Programme
• 1999 - Alan Feduccia publishes The Origin and Evolution of Birds arguing against the view that birds originated from and are deeply nested within Theropoda (and are therefore living theropod dinosaurs).