Donald Trounson

Alfred Donald Trounson OAM (30 September 1905 – 29 January 2009) was a British diplomat and amateur photographer who settled in Australia in his retirement to become a bird photographer and the founder of the National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife.

Early years Trounson was born in Redruth, Cornwall, the son of a provisions merchant. He was educated at Mill Hill School in north London, where he displayed an early interest in photography when he won the Public Schools Photographic Competition with a landscape of St Ives harbour.

On leaving school Trounson worked for several years in the hardware department of the family business, following which he became a management trainee with Marks and Spencer. He played the piano in musical festivals and was a member of the Cornwall Light Orchestra. In 1929 he competed in the Monte Carlo Rally with rally driver and automotive designer Donald Healey. A brief first marriage failed. With the RASC he was in charge of activities as various as distributing chocolate to soldiers returning from Dunkirk, escorting captured Italian soldiers to prison camps in Algeria and organising food supplies in Sicily.

Trounson was widowed twice, outliving both Peggy and Molly. He died at the age of 103.

Publications 1969 – 60 Camera Studies of Australian Birds. (With Molly Clampett, and with notes by Peggy Trounson). Australian Consolidated Press Ltd: Sydney. 1987 – Australia Land of Birds. (With Molly Trounson). Collins: Sydney. 1989 – Australian Birds: An Index of 864 Photographs Simply Classified for Easy Identification. (With Molly Trounson). PR Books, Australia. (the second edition of Australia Land of Birds) 2002- Australian Birds: A Concise Photographic Field Guide. (With Molly Trounson) . Cameron House, An Imprint of Bookwise International Pty Ltd, Wingfield, South Australia. () 2005 – Australian birds: a concise photographic field guide. (With Molly Trounson). Bluestone Press, Wingfield.