Research Ecologist

Office:
Stirling
Alastair is currently working alongside Natural England to improve knowledge of seabird flight heights and collision risk with offshore wind turbines in UK waters. His primary role is to undertake a review of existing methods for collecting seabird flight height data to inform our
understanding of flight height distributions and their use in impact assessments.
Alastair has a broad interest in ecology and conservation with a particular focus on predicting the response of ecological systems to environmental change. He is especially interested in improving his understanding of how to sustainably manage the many valuable services that ecosystems provide.
BSc (Hons) Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, 2010
MRes Ecology, University of Nottingham, 2014
PhD, Bangor University: ‘A modelling approach to assessing the environmental impacts of harvesting intertidal bivalves from natural populations’, 2023
MRes Ecology, University of Nottingham, 2014
PhD, Bangor University: ‘A modelling approach to assessing the environmental impacts of harvesting intertidal bivalves from natural populations’, 2023
Recent BTO Publications
- Feather, A.P., Burton, N.H.K., Johnston, D.T. & Boersch-Supan, P.H. A review of existing methods to collect data on seabird flight height distributions and their use in offshore wind farm impact assessments View at journal website( DOI: )
- Calbrade, N.A., Birtles, G.A., Woodward, I.D., Feather, A., Hiza, B.M., Caulfield, E.B., Balmer, D.E., Peck, K., Wotton, S.R., Shaw, J.M. & Frost, T.M. Waterbirds in the UK 2023/24 View at journal website( DOI: )
- Woodward, I.D., Calbrade, N.A., Birtles, G.A., Feather, A., Peck, K., Wotton, S.R., Shaw, J.M., Balmer, D.E. & Frost, T.M. Waterbirds in the UK 2022/23 View at journal website( DOI: )