Dr Phil Atkinson - leads the BTO’s international research programme, which is diverse in nature but has a strong emphasis on collaborative projects with biological, social and economic aspects. He has a wide range of research interests including: the ecology of Palearctic-African migrants on their wintering grounds, understanding the impact of poverty alleviation policies on biodiversity and farmer livelihoods in central Uganda, biodiversity impacts of land use change in São Tomé e Principe, and the migration routes of waterbirds.
Dr Danaë Sheehan - is a Conservation Scientist working in the RSPB’s International Research Department. She leads on a range or research projects, including those relating to AfroPalearctic migrants on their non-breeding grounds in Africa, the development of a global Wild Bird Indicator, and the breeding ecology of spotted flycatchers in the UK. She also project manages common bird monitoring schemes with BirdLife partners in Uganda, Rwanda and Botswana.
As well as looking at the breeding ecology of migrant birds for the part of their life cycles that they spend in the UK, the BTO and RSPB are now beginning to focus on what is happening during the other half of these birds lives, in a major new collaborative project. The project aims to assess which of the changes in the African wintering grounds are likely to be key drivers of declines, initially by determining: 1) what habitats different species require, and 2) how and when they use them. We will also look at how the areas and management of key habitats have changed over time (and how they are likely to change in future) and what conservation actions could be undertaken to reverse declines in populations of migrant birds. This talk will provide an overview of the project and look at preliminary results from the first season of fieldwork.
You can follow the work of this project on our project 'blog' pages at: migrantbirdsinafrica.blogspot.com .
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