2019 - a BTO year in review
20 Dec 2019
2019 has flown by and you have been able to follow our work on our website and social media, as well as through BTO News and other publications. There are too many stories to be told, but we have collected some of our proudest achievements here and in the video at the bottom of this page to highlight the incredible work of BTO volunteers and staff. From tracking Cuckoos to engaging with young people, from learning about garden birds to announcing our new President - we hope you enjoy the video and do keep following us to see what 2020 will bring.
Science
2019 was an exciting year for our tracking work with new Cuckoos tagged, including in Mongolia, and continued work on Short-eared Owls. We also started collaborating with the Endangered Landscapes Programme on a project in Polesia. This year saw the publication of a variety of papers including on the effects of tracking devices, climate change, data robustness and garden bird communities. An external panel looked at our science and we published this in our Science Impact Review. The Bird Indicators for the Government were published as well as the State of Nature report, BBS report, and WeBS Alerts.
Engagement
We met our volunteers, members, and people completely new to BTO in a variety of ways this year, from heading to Edinburgh with our What's Under Your Feet project, to celebrating women in ornithology, launching our new website and the new BTO blog. We also announced Frank Gardner as our new President and we launched Operation Wader. Thanks to the Gardenwatch project with BBC Springwatch we engaged over 130,000 people and concluded data collection for the Tawny Owl Calling Survey. Our clothing shop has had new designs added and we published the Brecks Guides.
Events
BTO attended and organised a series of events this year, starting with a series of local events such as Bristol Festival of Nature and Norwich Science Festival. We attended larger expos like New Scientist Live and Gardeners' World Live, as well as more bird-orientated events including Birdfair and Migfest. We hosted our annual Bird Camp, and for the first time, we organised a Young Leaders Course at Spurn Bird Observatory. The finalists at the Martin Garner Spurn Young Birder, also held at Migfest, impressed the judges with their birding knowledge. We also held our Annual Conference at Swanwick, where we enjoyed meeting our members and updating you all on our work.
We hope you had a great 2019 and we look forward to meeting you in 2020!
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