Staff profile

I graduated from Newcastle University with an MBiol with honours in Zoology. My project involves developing a modelling framework that simulates the behaviour of the intra-continental migratory bird species the common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) as they migrate from their Latvian breeding grounds to their wintering grounds in Britain. As common starlings have flexible migration strategies over relatively short distances that may change due to the environmental pressures acting upon different populations, modelling their behaviour may allow the exploration of the drivers of migratory behaviour at a finer spatial scale then has previously been looked at. My project aims to build upon an existing modelling framework to explore how different populations of common starlings (S. vulgaris) may respond to the environmental changes occurring because of large scale climate and land use changes.