Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust (FIBOT)
Fair Isle Bird Observatory is run by an independent charity, Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust (Registered Charity No. SC011160), which owns the building and a small area of land, although we have close links to other organisations, such as the National Trust for Scotland, which owns the remainder of the island.
The current Directors (October 2025) are: Karen Hall (Acting Chair), Ian Andrews, Alexander Bennett, Ian Cowgill, Paul Harvey, Jane Reid, Hollie Shaw and Glen Tyler. Roy Dennis is our Honorary President.
Ian Andrews retired as a geologist in 2018 and has been an active birder continuously for 45 years. His early birding years were spent in Kent, but he moved to Scotland in 1979 - the year after his first visit to Fair Isle. He has been based in Musselburgh with his wife, Jill, for many years, but together they spent three exciting years in Jordan in 1989-92. Locally, he did a stint at being local bird recorder and is currently co-editor of the local bird report. He has been heavily involved with the SOC since 1999, setting up their first website soon after; he was Club President for 2 years, a lead editor of The Birds of Scotland published in 2007 and was co-ordinating editor of the journal Scottish Birds from 2009 to 2020. He was a member of the group which organised and published Birds in South-east Scotland 2007-13, taking responsibility for databases and mapping. His birding interests lie in patch birding, with the spice of finding something unusual, and he enjoys occasional forays overseas.
Alexander Bennett qualified as a Chartered Surveyor and recently-retired from the National Trust for Scotland which he joined as a building surveyor in 1979. Originally working in Edinburgh, he moved to Inverness in 1985 as Factor for their Highlands and Islands region where he has worked on many projects including the Culloden Battlefield Memorial Project, Balmacara, St Kilda and Glencoe. Laterally he was General Manager Countryside and Islands North, where he had special responsibilities for the Trust's island properties of Canna, St Kilda, Fair Isle, Canna, Iona, Mingulay, Shieldaig and Unst. He has now retired which gives him time to pursue his many diverse interests include hill walking, cycling, fitness, gardening, bird watching, the family and the cultural, social and natural history of the Highlands and Islands.
Ian Cowgill is married to Lynn and hails from Nottinghamshire. He ceased work with Nottinghamshire County Council in 2010, where he spent 25 years employed as a project manager in highway engineering. He is an avid birder and visits his local patch, Lound gravel pits, every day. His first visit to Fair Isle was in the autumn of 1996, with the aim of seeing the islands speciality birds. The trip was so successful that he has returned to the island as frequently as possible ever since, drawn back as much by the island and its friendly residents as its remarkable birds. When he's not birding, he enjoys watching all sport, and he says he has been trying to improve his snooker for the past 40 years. Lynn and he have recently taken over stewardship of the FIBO stand at the annual British Birdfair at Rutland Water.
Karen Hall is a marine adviser for NatureScot based in Lerwick with her main specialism being marine mammals. She's often heard muttering the refrain 'I don't do birds' but somehow during her time with SNH, knowledge of Shetland's birds has sunk in and she can just about hold her own on seabirds and waders (just don't ask anything challenging!). Karen coordinates the annual Grey Seal pupping surveys in Shetland and sits on the SOTEAG monitoring committee. She also coordinates retrieval, transport and sample taking from dead cetaceans for SMASS and has become quite the expert in identifying decomposing marine mammals! Karen has had a long history with Fair Isle and the Obs having worked closely with Nick Riddiford and FIMETI over many years to try and achieve more marine protection for the isle. Finally in November 2016 Fair Isle was designated as Scotland's first Demonstration and Research and the exciting process has begun of using that designation to its fullest. In her spare time, Karen does regular sea watches (from her living room window in Levenwick) and has been known to drop everything for her version of a twitch whilst her son complains 'Not another Killer Whale, mum'. 
Paul Harvey left his native Dorset to become an assistant warden at FIBO in 1984, fell in love with Shetland and has lived there ever since. He returned to the Observatory as an AW in 1985 and then as Warden from 1989 to 1992, with his partner Elizabeth and their three lasses. A spell with Scottish Natural Heritage from 1993 to 2001 saw him take charge of Shetland's three National Nature Reserves and get to know more about the islands, mammals, plants and moths, before moving to his current position with Shetland Amenity Trust where he is the project officer for natural heritage and manages the Shetland Biological Records Centre. He was a co-author of The Birds of Shetland and Rare Plants of Shetland. Paul has served on the British Ornithologist's Union Records Committee and British Birds Rarities Committee and although he enjoys all aspects of our natural heritage still gets the biggest buzz from finding a rarity.
Jane Reid first visited Fair Isle aged 14 and has been addicted ever since. She has found various excuses to return, including as a long-term volunteer and assistant warden, a PhD student and more recently as a visiting researcher and Director. She enjoys combining her enthusiasms for birding and ringing with her professional interest and expertise in ecological research. She is now a professor of population and evolutionary ecology at the University of Aberdeen, with interests in understanding the long-term dynamics of bird populations. She is currently leading efforts to analyse FIBO's long-term migration census data and reveal how Fair Isle's migrant birds really have changed over the past half-century.
