John Sidney Ash (1925 – 2014) was an English ornithologist.
He had a strong interest in the avifauna from the Horn of Africa, in particular Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
[2] In 1945, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the Newcastle wing of the University of Durham.
[2] Ash discovered several new bird taxa, including the Ankober serin (Serinus ankoberensis), Turdoides squamulata carolinae (a subspecies of the scaly babbler) which he named for his daughter Caroline,[4] Hippolais pallida alulensis (a subspecies of the eastern olivaceous warbler), Acrocephalus scirpaceus avicenniae (a subspecies of the common reed warbler), the Ash's lark (Mirafra ashi) which was named after him by Peter Colston in 1982,[1] and Ploceus victoriae, which is now thought to be a hybrid between the black-headed weaver and the northern brown-throated weaver.
[2] In November 1951, Ash married Jonquil Gudgeon, a zoologist, who died three days before him.