Ian Nixon has had a life long interest in ornithology and is presently a committee member of Lincolnshire Bird Club. Bird surveys are his specialist area of work and he has carried out such work all over the country including Common Bird Census (CBC), Wetland bird Survey (WeBS), the National Swan Census, vantage point flightline surveys, farmland bird surveys for the RSPB and winter wader counts on both The Wash and Mersey estuaries. Other ornithological projects in which Ian has been involved have included assisting with a gull-ringing project, tape luring of stone curlew and night-time wader counting.

A licensed bat worker, Ian has been the Natural England volunteer bat warden for the Boston area for the last three years and is an active member of Lincolnshire Bat Group. Having carried out many surveys using Pettersson time-expansion detectors he has also developed specialist knowledge of using software relating to sound analysis of bat recordings.

One of Ian's other strengths is the production of graphics for ecological projects, having qualified as a computer programmer he has combined his IT skills with his ecological experience and knowledge. Previous employment has included a post as a senior graphics manager with a large ecological consultancy and he has considerable experience of using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) namely MapInfo. He has experience of producing graphics for large scale projects where clients have required complex mapping of ecological features such as National Vegetation Classification (NVC) distribution maps, Phase 1 habitat mapping or detailed sound analysis following large scale bat activity surveys.