Frederick Nicholson Betts

Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Nicholson Betts (25 October 1906 – 22 August 1973) was a coffee plantation manager, British Indian Army officer, a political agent, and an ornithologist.

He was commissioned in India as a captain in the Punjab Regiment, second lieutenant (12 September 1929,[1] Lt. 20 June 1930,[2] moving from the reserve to the Indian Army on 1 August 1932[3]) and in 1940, was posted to Eritrea.

[6] His notes document the differences in the avifauna of the dry and wet zones of Coorg and also provide arrival dates for local and long-distance migrants.

The editors of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society noted:[7] Mr F. N. Betts contributed a well illustrated paper on the Birds of a South Indian Tank in the Province of Coorg.

Two BBC Radio 4 programs, The Naga Queen, produced by Chris Eldon Lee and narrated by John Horsley Denton, and The Butterfly Hunt, a play by Matthew Solon were based on the life of F. N. Betts and his wife Ursula Graham Bower.