Ian Cecil Robert Rowley (1926 - 29 May 2009) was an Australian ornithologist of Scottish origin. He was born in Edinburgh and educated at Wellington College and Cambridge University. Following service in the Royal Navy during the second world war, he moved to Australia in 1949 and graduated in Agricultural Science from Melbourne University under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. From 1952 he worked for many years with the CSIRO on animal ecology. He was well known for his extensive studies on fairy-wrens. He served the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union as Editor of the Emu 1990–2000. He was elected a Fellow of the RAOU in 1989. In 1991 he was awarded the inaugural D.L. Serventy Medal, which recognises excellence in published work on birds. Published books include: Rowley, Ian. (1975). Bird Life. Australian Naturalist Library. Collins: Sydney. Rowley, Ian. (1990). Behavioural Ecology of the Galah, Eolophus roseicapillus, in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. Surrey Beatty & Sons Pty Ltd: Chipping Norton. Rowley, Ian; & Russell, Eleanor. (1997). Fairy-wrens and Grasswrens. Bird Families of the World. No.4. Oxford University Press: Oxford.