ONE of Devon's most respected ornithologists has died after a long illness. Gordon Vaughan, of Exeter and later Okehampton, was born in 1933 and moved to Devon from London in 1955. He joined the then Devon Bird Watching and Preservation Society (DBWPS), now renamed Devon Birds, and was a member for the next 50 years. He and his wife Joy married in 1957 and bought a newsagent's business in Exeter and Gordon become president of the National Federation of Newsagents. In 1967 the newsagent business was sold and another bought in Okehampton where Gordon become chairman of the chamber of trade. In 1970 he discovered a pair of Pied Flycatchers at Belstone — his life was about to transformed as he built and maintained nestboxes and surveyed the birds, particularly the Pied Flycatchers, using their new' homes', for the next 35 years. By 1985 Gordon had put out 200 nest boxes and that year 53 Pied Flycatchers were found nesting in them. The number of nestboxes eventually increased to 300. By 1988 his colony of flycatchers was the largest in the whole of southern England. In 1990 during a Devon Birds field trip to Lundy, Gordon noticed a small auk type bird which was identified by then RSPB's Richard Campey as an Ancient Murrelet, not only a new bird for Devon but also for Britain. Gordon leaves his wife, Joy, and two sons, Nigel and Roger, with daughter-in-law Teresa, and five grandchildren. The family cremation took place on November 7 at Exeter and Devon Crematorium with a thanksgiving service at Fairplace Church, Okehampton, the same day.