R. S. R. Fitter

Richard Sidney Richmond Fitter (1 March 1913 – 3 September 2005) was a British naturalist and author.

[1] He was recruited to the Institute for Political and Economic Planning in 1936, and in 1940 moved to the social research organisation Mass-Observation to investigate civilian morale for the Ministry of Information.

"With the publication of The Pocket Guide to British Birds (1952), illustrated by R.A. Richardson, Fitter became a bestselling author.

[1] In 2002 father and son jointly authored a paper in Science analysing the changing phenology of plant flowering times due to global warming.

[4] He wrote the Collins Pocket Guide to British Birds (1952), which started a series of field guides by various authors, setting a style which was helpful to the inexperienced observer by the way it was organised and explained,[1] placing short texts alongside pictures.

[4] His Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers (with David McClintock, 1956) had pictures grouped by colour for easier identification.