W. Ross Silcock was born in New Zealand in 1944. He attended high school at King's College in Auckland, New Zealand. At Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, he graduated in 1966 with a Bachelor's Degree in Agricultural Science, majoring in Biochemistry. In 1968 Ross received a Master's Degree in Agricultural Science with Honors. In 1968 Ross began Ph.D. studies at Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, and received the Ph.D. degree in Food Science and Biotechnology in 1971.

While in Pennsylvania, Ross renewed his life-long interest in birds, which he pursued avidly during and subsequent to post-doctoral research at North Carolina State University. Ross then returned to farm management and nutrition, part of his undergraduate area of study, and managed large livestock operations in North Carolina and Iowa for the next ten years until allergies forced a change.

Since 1985 Ross has been an independent insurance agent in Sidney, Iowa, managing a successful insurance agency which specializes in agricultural lines of insurance.

While living in Iowa, Ross has been a member of both the Iowa and Nebraska Ornithologists' Unions' Records Committees, wrote yearly Christmas Bird Count and Winter Field Report Summaries for Iowa Bird Life for about 19 years, is a Past President of the Iowa Ornithologists' Union, and has since 1993 written the Seasonal Reports for the Nebraska Bird Review, the journal of the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union.

Ross is a co-author of the book "Birds of Nebraska", published in June 2001.

Ross is a member of the American Birding Association, The Nature Conservancy, Ornithologists' Society of New Zealand, New Zealand Forest and Bird, Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi, Australasian Seabird Group, Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association (SOSSA), Iowa and Nebraska Ornithologists' Unions, Kansas Ornithological Society, Audubon Society of Missouri, and the British Ornithologists' Club.

Ross has been an active field birder in both Nebraska and Iowa, and has traveled through all of the "Lower 48" United States, where he has seen over 600 species of birds. He also leads land and pelagic birding tours to New Zealand in alternating years.

Currently Ross resides in Tabor, Iowa, with his wife Lyndabeth, a teacher of Spanish at Glenwood High School. They have two adult children. His parents still live at Cambridge, New Zealand.