Jo Moran
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Moran (2 June 1930 – 11 July 2021) was an English ornithologist, wildlife photographer, mountaineer and climber.[1] He was the first person to climb the cliffs of the Noup of Noss in Shetland, Scotland, the first to photograph the Leach's storm petrel at the nest, and was also an early influence on British mountaineer and climber Mick Burke.[2]
Joseph Moran was born in Wigan in 1930, to Thomas Moran, a gas works manager and rugby league referee, and his second wife, Julia (née Moore).[1] His early interest in birds was inspired by reading the work of Archibald Thorburn.
Ornithology and bird photography
A keen birdwatcher and photographer, between the 1950s and 1980s, Jo published several illustrated articles, on the bullfinch,[3] the jay,[4] the yellow bunting,[5] the common gull,[6] the common guillemot,[7] the jackdaw,[8] the ring ouzel or 'mountain blackbird',[9] the scoter,[10] the kestrel and sparrowhawk,[11] the birds of the Calf of Eday[12] in the Orkney Islands, and of the Great Saltee,[13] as well as reflections on hybridisation of British birds,[14] and the practice of ornithology,[15] all illustrated with his original photographic work.
In 1958, with friends Vince Connolly and Harry Shorrock, Jo photographed the Leach's petrel at the nest, on Eilean Mòr in the Flannan Islands. This photograph, published in Scotland's Magazine in 1961,[16] is considered to be the first instance of this bird being photographed at the nest. Jo later gave illustrated public lectures on this and related topics, including, for example, in 1997 and 1999 for several Ornithological Societies in Cheshire.[17][18]
In the late 1950s, a few years after the evacuation of the islands in 1953, he visited Great Blasket (Na Blascaodaí) and Inishvickillane (Inis Mhic Aoibhleáin) off County Kerry in Ireland, to establish whether there was a breeding colony of Leach's petrels in this archipelago. His illustrated record of this visit has been accessioned by the museum of The Blasket Centre in Dunquin (a heritage and cultural centre/museum honouring the unique community who lived on the remote Blasket Islands until their evacuation). During this trip, as noted in the accessioned documents, he met and was assisted by Muiris 'Kruger' Kavanagh, publican, raconteur and prominent figure in Irish cultural history.[19]
Jo travelled throughout Orkney, Shetland and the west of Ireland and photographed all the British nesting seabirds at the nest. His photographic work was publicly exhibited in 2007,[20][21] at Rivington Park Gallery in Lancashire.