Interview with a Prize-Winning Step Up Ambassador

Congratulations to 2020 graduate and Step Up Ambassador Maddy, who was awarded the Southern Field Studies Book Prize earlier this year - given to the candidate who has shown the greatest aptitude for zoological field studies in the Final Honour School of Biological Sciences.

Below, she gives us some details about her prize-winning project. Read the full interview with Maddy here. 

Many congratulations on your Southern Field Studies Book Prize. Tell us a little about your winning project. 

Thank you so much! This prize was awarded for my field work, so particularly my project dissertation. For my dissertation, I was working on Skomer Island, Wales, with Manx shearwater fledglings; young, fluffy, adorable seabirds that live in burrows! I had to take part in designing an experiment to test a hypothesis. This involved collecting my own data and analysing this to see if it supported my hypothesis. I looked at how the fledglings orient themselves on land when placed in an unknown location. While we already knew that the fledglings are capable of migrating from Wales all the way to South America, when they were on the island, they didn’t orient back towards where we’d picked them up from, or into the wind as we expected. They seemed to want to head towards the sound of the sea, probably because they were trying to fledge and make their way to South America! It was interesting to find out that they may be affected so much by the sound of the sea, as this means that any future experiments with Manx shearwater fledglings should be conducted away from the coastline so that these sounds don’t affect the results.

While this is all quite complicated, I found that once I was in the field collecting the data, everything made so much sense. Working with the birds was an incredible experience and I have never felt closer to nature. As the fledglings are active at night, I was collecting data through the night – and it was completely worth it to get to handle and be around these truly amazing creatures.