A lifelong interest in birds and joining the BTO ringing scheme in 2014 led me into the world of animal behaviour research. I’m now a final-year PhD student in the Oxford Navigation (OxNav) group, which has been studying Manx shearwaters across the Irish Sea for two decades. Shearwaters are ocean wanderers on a vast scale. We investigate how they are able to find food hundreds of miles from their nests and then make their way home with remarkable accuracy. OxNav has combined high-tech tracking technology and low-tech field skills to follow the natural movements of shearwaters and carry out field experiments. I’ll be talking about this long-term research project and what we’ve learned about the senses and strategies that allow shearwaters to achieve their incredible navigational feats.

This is free for all and can be joined using the following Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89115388623?pwd=vSQvanAb2hkaKFjWuxJU9hwvgudzrT.1

Meeting ID: 891 1538 8623
Passcode: 017559