Annie Meinertzhagen (2 June 1889 – 6 July 1928) was a Scottish ornithologist who contributed to studies on bird migration and was a specialist regarding waders and ducks, especially their moulting patterns. She married fellow ornithologist Richard Meinertzhagen in 1921 and died from a gunshot fired under suspicious circumstances.
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Early years
Born Anne Constance Jackson, her parents were Major Randle Jackson and Emily V. Baxter of Swordale, a village in eastern Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Mrs Jackson was the daughter of Edward Baxter of Kincaldrum, Angus.
Anne developed an early interest in natural history, especially in birds. With her younger sister Dorothy, who was to become an entomologist, she studied zoology for three years at the Imperial College of Science in London under Ernest MacBride.
In 1915, she published a paper with MacBride in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on the inheritance of colour in the stick insect Carausius morosus.
Much of her early ornithological work occurred while she was based in Swordale, in Ross and Cromarty, and along the firths of Cromarty and Dornoch she began publishing papers on the local birdlife in 1909. She took an interest in bird migration and corresponded with lighthouse keepers who sent her specimens of rarities. She collected the first Scottish autumn specimens of the yellow-browed warbler and was the first ornithologist to demonstrate that the Icelandic race of the common redshank (Tringa totanus robusta) visits Britain.