James David Macdonald FRSE FLS FZS FIB (3 October 1908 – 17 September 2002) was a Scottish-Australian ornithologist and ornithological writer.
[1] He attended Foyers Public School from 1913 to 1924 before obtaining a bursary to complete his secondary education at the Inverness Royal Academy, from which he graduated Dux in Art in 1927.
[1] He studied natural science at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with a BSc in Forestry in 1930 and in Pure Science (botany and zoology) in 1932, following which he carried out research on decapod crustaceans with the Scottish Fisheries Board and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
[1] Apart from service with the British Admiralty during the Second World War, he stayed with the museum for the rest of his career, becoming Senior Scientific Officer in charge of the Bird Room and Deputy Keeper of the Zoology Department by the time of his retirement in 1968.
[1][2] As part of his job with the museum, Macdonald organised bird collecting expeditions to the mountains of the southern Sudan in 1938–1939 and to the arid regions of south-western South Africa and South West Africa, including the Kalahari Desert, in 1950–1951.