Focal research areas

BTO's science teams cover a wide-range of research areas, encompassing a number of ongoing projects. We regularly review our strategy and work plan to ensure we prioritise the issues that matters most. Here are a few of the areas that we are focusing on now.

Arctic Skua tagging on Fair Isle. Dave Batchelor

Declining migrants

Investigating the complex factors contributing to the rapid decline of Afro-Palaearctic migrants.

Woodland expansion

Informing the national forest strategies to maximise effective landscape-scale conservation within the UK.

Urban planning

Improving urban planning and increasing human interactions with wildlife in the urban sphere.

Monitoring

Maintaining our core monitoring work, while diversifying surveys and broadening our supporter base.

Breeding waders

Delivering conservation strategies that ensure sustainable populations of our breeding waders.

Seabirds

Working in collaboration to support effective monitoring of seabirds and to assess the pressures they face.

Meet our national teams

BTO has offices based in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, providing local habitat and species expertise for our scientific research, and closer support for volunteers across the UK.

Find out more

BirdTrack migration blog – early spring

It may still feel like winter but for some species, the increasing temperatures and lengthening days have already kick-started spring migration, with birds starting to arrive and depart across Britain and Ireland.

Article

Taking part in GSMP

There are various volunteer surveys to take part in, all of which contribute valuable data to our understanding of our internationally important populations of geese and swans.

Artist Bruce Pearson working in the field in Senegal as part of the BTO/SWLA Flight Lines project

Case Study

Art and the written word increase engagement with migrant birds

Discover how art and the written word are increasing engagement with migrant birds and the challenges that they face