Voluntary research assistantship in seabird behaviour & ecology Skomer Island & University of Oxford

Oxford University is advertising for a Voluntary Research Assistant for the 2015 season:



We are looking for an enthusiastic, hardworking young biologist to work as a voluntary Research Assistant to help with our pelagic seabird research on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales, in Spring and Summer 2015. The work will involve several research projects coordinated by Prof Tim Guilford at Oxford’s Department of Zoology (see the OxNav website). We utilise state-of-the art tracking technologies (miniature GPS, geolocators, time-depth recorders & on-board video) on several species (Manx Shearwaters, Atlantic Puffins, Common Guillemots, Razorbills). Most work will involve assisting doctoral students with the day-to-day maintenance of the study burrows, weighing and monitoring breeding birds and their chicks, and the deployment and retrieval/downloading of tracking devices. It will also involve entering data collected in the field into appropriate databases. There will be a significant amount of nocturnal work, since the primary study species is the Manx Shearwater, which only arrives at the colony after dark. There will also be scope for involvement in other conservation and ecological projects on the island, which is a National Nature Reserve administered by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.