Manager
Role and responsibilities
Training is central to the BTO’s goals of enabling people to learn through participation in environmental discovery, and empowering them with an understanding of birds. The role includes designing and delivering a programme of training activities around bird identification and BTO surveys, and developing BTO’s online training materials. Although the role does not cover Ringing or Nest Record Scheme training, Nick works closely with the Demography team to maintain an overview of training activities across the organisation.
Interests
Nick draws on ten years of teaching experience in the UK, Uganda, China and the United Arab Emirates. He is very familiar with the BTO’s core volunteer schemes, having worked in the BTO Surveys team as BirdTrack Organiser 2009–2017. His work also involves growing the support provided for BTO Regional Network volunteers, and creating opportunities for young people to engage with birds and the BTO.
Other Information
Nick is a ‘nocmigger’ – sound-recording the nocturnal flight calls of migratory birds – and helps to run a nocmig website about how to engage with this exciting element of birding. He is an experienced bird guide and has led birding trips in the UK, Spain, China and the UAE.
Qualifications
BSc (Hons) Environmental Biology, University of St Andrews, 1994–1998.
Postgraduate Certificate of Education (Secondary Science), University of Oxford. 1999–2000.
Recent BTO publications
- Nicolau, P.G., Burgess, M.D., Marques, T.A., Baillie, S.R., Moran, N.J., Leech, D.I. & Johnston, A. 2021. Latitudinal variation in arrival and breeding phenology of the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca using large-scale citizen science data. Journal of Avian Biology doi:10.1111/jav.02646
- Johnston, A., Moran, N., Musgrove, A., Fink, D. & Baillie, S.R. 2020. Estimating species distributions from spatially biased citizen science data. Ecological Modelling 422: doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.108927
- Wessels, P., Moran, N., Johnston, A. & Wang, W. 2019. Hybrid expert ensembles for identifying unreliable data in citizen science. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 81: 212. doi:10.1016/j.engappai.2019.01.004
- Sparks, T.H., Atkinson, S., Lewthwaite, K., Dhap, R., Moran, N.J. & Tryjanowski, P. 2017. Can bird abundance declines be detected by citizen science programmes? A case study using Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus. Avian Biology Research 10: 245. doi:10.3184/175815617X15036738758862
- Newson, S.E., Moran, N.J., Musgrove, A.J., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Gillings, S., Atkinson, P.W., Miller, R., Grantham, M.J. & Baillie, S.R. 2016. Long-term changes in the migration phenology of UK breeding birds detected by large-scale citizen science recording schemes. Ibis 158: 481-495 doi:10.1111/ibi.12367