Croeso i Gymru Welcome to Wales

 This week the BTO Cymru team welcomes Dr Callum Macgregor.  Callum joins us from the University of Hull. Callum has already taken some tentative steps learning welsh , which will be become a lot easier after he finished relocating to North Wales. With Covid restrictions  now easing I am sure you will soon bump into him at various sites and hoefully in the autumn when the conference season hopefully getting back on track. Croeso i Gymru Callum.

I have been a keen birder since childhood, inspired in part by several formative years spent living in New Zealand. I've since developed interests in a range of other taxa - particularly butterflies, moths, and more recently hardy orchids. A return visit to NZ in 2006 - specifically, a day trip to the offshore predator-free sanctuary of Tiritiri Matangi - convinced me to pursue a career as a conservation ecologist. Since then, I completed my PhD at Newcastle University, studying how light pollution at night affects the role of moths as pollinators, and two subsequent postdoctoral research positions in Yorkshire investigating the impacts of climate change on butterflies (York) and the ecological value of brownfield sites to birds, plants, and insects (Hull) respectively, before joining BTO Cymru as a Research Ecologist in May 2021. Outside of work hours, I am a keen cyclist and hill-walker, and an amateur wildlife photographer (some would say VERY amateur!).