Background
My time is split between a summer of fieldwork in the UK, leading the turtle dove satellite-tagging programme, and a winter of fieldwork determining their requirements and possible causes of decline on their stop-over sites and sub-Saharan wintering grounds.
Action on the latter has been undertaken in collaboration with partner organisations in Senegal and Morocco. Whilst benefiting from local expertise to carry out our work programme, a very large element of the work has been the training of local staff and capacity building within the research departments of these partner organisations.
While with the RSPB I have previously undertaken research into the habitat requirements of wood warblers in sub-Saharan West Africa, the declines of house sparrows in London and of song thrushes in the south east of England, investigated use by all birds of winter farmland habitats in South Devon, monitored breeding productivity and predation rates of curlews in Northern Ireland and monitored breeding productivity of ground-nesting seabirds in Orkney.
I have a broad range of fieldwork skills, in particular bird ringing involving a wide range of trapping methods, satellite-tagging and radio-telemetry.
I have several years’ experience of training others in all of these areas, plus instruction in a variety of data collection methods and data management.
Contact

Chris Orsman
Senior Research Assistant, Conservation Science
The Lodge, Potton Road, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL