Voluntariado con aves marinas en Gales

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, between April and September 2018. 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, primarily Manx Shearwaters and Atlantic Puffins. Most work will involve assisting doctoral students (Martyna Syposz and Natasha Gillies) 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.

Another part of the project, supervised by Dr Annette Fayet, will consist of monitoring puffin study burrows by observing colour ring birds, checking burrows for eggs and chicks with a burrowscope camera, and looking for juvenile colour-ringed birds on a regular basis throughout the breeding season. There will also be ~2 weeks of intensive early-morning work in June to retrieve and deploy trackers on adult puffins to track their migration and foraging movements.

Unfortunately we cannot provide a stipend but accommodation (shared and basic) on Skomer will be covered and as part of the puffin project, food expenses will be covered for ~6 weeks. We have also assisted previous research assistants in securing additional funding to cover the modest living expenses on the island. However, the project is a great opportunity to gain valuable experience in modern field ornithology. There will also be opportunities for the assistant to learn some analytical techniques applied to animal movement data and statistical analyses. Skomer has decent mobile coverage and some (slow) access to Internet, however movements to and from the mainland are limited because of unpredictable wind conditions. There is a small community of wardens, assistants and volunteers, who are involved in the running and conservation of the Nature Reserve, monitoring the seabird populations, and managing the daily and over-night visitors. There might be opportunities to visit other UK island reserves during the project. 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.

Profile: we are looking for a motivated and hardworking biologist, who likes working in the field and can cope with difficult working and living conditions. Previous experience in the field or in harsh conditions is desirable, but not essential. Work on Skomer requires long hours (with some work at night and at dawn) spent in a cold and wet environment and considerable manual work. A good candidate should be able to work independently and have a reasonable level of fitness. Planning to embark on further research degrees in the future would be a plus (previous assistants have all engaged in postgraduate studies afterwards). It is also important that the assistant feels comfortable sharing sometimes crowded accommodation with a number of colleagues over long periods of time, and can cope with the occasional untidiness inevitably associated with fieldwork. Unfortunately, for administrative reasons, we can only accept applications from people having permission to work in the UK (UK and EU citizens, UK residents, or persons with a UK work permit).


How to apply: If you are interested, please email a CV and a statement of interest and arrange for two letters of reference to be emailed to tim.guilford@zoo.ox.ac.uk(please make sure to cc annette.fayet@zoo.ox.ac.uk and oliver.padget@zoo.ox.ac.uk). The deadline for submitting applications (including reference letters) is the 31st January 2018. Please note that providing the names of referees is not sufficient and unfortunately we will not be able to consider applicants who have not arranged for reference letters to be emailed to us. We will interview the shortlisted candidates (on Skype) shortly after the deadline and we expect to make a decision by late February. We will inform all applicants of the outcome.