Robin J. Khan MBE (born 1933)

Dave Jenks, Society Archivist

Robin Khan was born in Rajasthan, India on 30 September 1933. His early schooldays were spent at the hill station of Naini Tal and this is where his interest in wildlife began. He can still recall listening to and learning the sounds of the nearby jungle. After the death of his father the family moved to England and he had a brief spell at a school in Surrey before moving as a boarder to Wellington School in Somerset. He still remembers getting many spells of detention for missing classes in order to watch birds or catch grass snakes for the Natural History Society. He went on to win the honour of being Army Cadet of the Year, which gave him a good start for a spell in the Army on leaving school.

Meanwhile, his family had now settled in West Cornwall and it was here, at the age of sixteen, that he learned his birds along the Cornish coast, and its estuaries and marshes. He had no binoculars or field guides in those days and he learned songs and calls by stalking his birds, and with the help of experienced friends. In 1952 he joined the Royal Artillery and after completing a parachute course was posted to the Suez Canal Zone, where he specialized in instructing in the use of small arms. His spare time was spent watching spring and autumn bird migration through the region, although the lack of binoculars and books was a severe drawback. He was amazed by the numbers of soaring storks, but particularly raptors, which were to become a passion in his life.

He left the Army in 1955 and then worked for Shell in London for the next three years. Hating city life, he returned to Cornwall to work in the agricultural oil market. He joined the Cornwall Birdwatching and Preservation Society in 1959 and served on their Council for a number of years. His interest in sea-watching began at this time and he helped establish a ringing station at Porthgwarra, near Land’s End. Not content with that, he also started a twelve year study of the Montagu’s Harrier on Bodmin Moor, which was eventually published in BWP, covering the breeding and social behaviour of our Society’s emblem. He married in 1960 and raised a family of two boys and a girl. Sadly, his daughter became terminally ill (she passed away in 1984 at just sixteen) and it was around this time that he became a self-employed wildlife consultant, working on contract for the Forestry Commission as a Ranger at Exeter Forest.

In 1983 Robin was awarded a much coveted Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship which enabled him to study the migration of butterflies and dragonflies through the Pyrenean Passes. It was in 1984 that he was offered the permanent post of Senior Conservation Ranger in the Commission’s Somerset and South Devon Forest Districts. He was promoted to Chief Ranger in 1986. It was largely through Robin’s work at Haldon Forest that it was created a Site of Special Scientific Interest. He retired in 1998 and his twenty years of work in bringing a greater understanding to wildlife conservation led to the award of an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List that year. Also, in recognition of his work there, the Forestry Commission granted him the freedom of their Southwest forests, which he considered to be a great honour.

Robin joined the DBWPS in 1964. He was the first Protection Officer of our Society, being elected to the post in 1971, serving until 1985. He was elected to Council in 1990 and became President in 1991, serving until 1994. He stepped down to become Vice-President in 1995. He last served on Council from 2000 through to 2002.