British Ornithologists Union: Janet Kear Union Medal

Steve P. Dudley Over the last 25 years, there have been seven Presidents captaining the BOU ship but for the whole period we have had the same pilot, Steve Dudley. He has steered the BOU with exceptional skill and enthusiasm, making sure that the Union delivers for its members, despite encountering some choppy waters and the odd iceberg. In July 2022, Steve retired and there was unanimous approval from Council when he was proposed as the 2023 recipient of the Janet Kear Union Medal. The reward recognizes his outstanding service to the BOU, and his remarkable contribution to the community that BOU serves. Steve was appointed as BOU Administrator by then President, John Croxall, when Gwen Bonham gave notice to retire back in 1997. His first act in his new role was to ask Gwen to stay on, to help him while he tackled some of the issues that the Union faced, and they worked together brilliantly for several years. It was one of many shrewd decisions that he made, on behalf of the BOU, as we shall discuss later. Steve took up birdwatching at the age of 17 and was a full-time Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) volunteer warden at Fairburn Ings within a year, before being appointed as a Summer Assistant Warden and then undertaking other short-term contracts for RSPB. In 1987 he moved to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), initially as a volunteer, but soon joined the Ringing Unit and was appointed as the Trust's first Membership Development Officer in 1991. He left in 1995 to work with Leica and remained a member of their Optical Innovation Team until 2010, some 13 years after leaving their employ to take on the BOU role. All of these links, to the RSPB, to BTO, to a vast network of birdwatchers and to the optics community served Steve well over his time as BOU Administrator and latterly Chief Operating Officer. Freelance work as a writer, tour guide, and with Leica all helped to maintain Steve's connection to a broad ornithological community, which also benefited BOU. Picking out highlights from Steve's time with BOU is hard. We all know that he ran many fantastic conferences and worked excellently with the BOU's Council and its committees but what was happening behind the scenes? Why is Steve so very deserving of this medal? Twenty-five years ago, BOU finances were not great. Two deals negotiated by Steve changed all that; the move of IBIS to Blackwell Publishing (now Wiley) and the digitisation of the back-catalogue of the journal. The BOU can only support ornithologists, and ornithology, with grants and bursaries because of the income we received during the early part of this century. Reserves built up from IBIS sales, among other income sources, during this period are still helping with this great work. Steve has always been a tremendous communicator and innovator, keeping the BOU in touch with the latest developments in social media. He identified the potential of Twitter very early and took ownership of the #ornithology tag before anyone else in the community really grasped what a hashtag was. This enabled BOU to be at the forefront of online ornithology, a reputation that was further developed via the @IBIS_journal Twitter account, tutorials, workshops and papers. Another major achievement of Steve's time running the BOU has been the dramatic increase in engagement with early career researchers (ECRs). Societies can sometimes seem remote for those entering into careers such as ornithology and, by the early 2000s, the BOU had an age structure that was increasingly skewed towards older, established members. Recognizing the huge importance to the BOU of connecting with early career ornithologists, Steve set about organizing workshops and lines of communication to find out what ECRs knew about, and might want from, the BOU. These conversations revealed a deep desire among ECRs to be part of a wider community of ornithologists, and Steve then worked tirelessly to make sure that the relevance of the BOU to members of all ages and career stages is apparent, and that engaging with the BOU is always informative and fun. Being a warm and welcoming society for everyone is core to BOU and was always core to Steve, and his work to develop and encourage our equality, diversity and inclusivity will be a lasting legacy. Steve's hard work in developing BOU's presence on social media and the associated engagement opportunities gave him something of a hero status among ECRs, as we witnessed when attending the International Ornithological Congress in Vancouver in 2018. The BOU stand was consistently one of the busiest, in part because so many people from all over the world wanted to meet Steve in person, and in part because he had (of course) made sure that the BOU stand occupied the best location in the entire building, in terms of visibility to passing delegates. In the last few years of Steve's time as COO, Steve was particularly pleased and proud to have developed two major research funding opportunities; the John & Pat Warham and Brenda & Tony Gibbs scholarships. These awards, funded through generous legacies from BOU members, have resulted in a suite of exciting studies and a cohort of PhD researchers across the world connected through BOU. Steve's stewardship of these awards, and his enthusiastic encouragement of awardees, have ensured that the legacies of the Warhams' and the Gibbs' are also a wonderful legacy for our whole ornithological community. At the end of his 25-years, Steve signed off with two acts that will ensure that the BOU continues to flourish. The hand-over to Leila Walker was exemplary but the last achievement was the negotiation of a new IBIS contract with Wiley that will take us through to the end of 2027. This builds on the excellent relationship with Wiley that Steve developed over two decades. Ornithology across the world owes Steve a huge debt of gratitude for all that he has done to bring us all together on-line and in person and for making the BOU a warm and friendly hub for so many years. The Janet Kear Union Medal is a fitting tribute to Steve's years of service.

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