Elsa brings sunshine to Chaddesley

The Centre for Ornithology has just finished hosting Elsa McKee who has spent the last month working with members. Elsa is a student of Bromsgrove High School and came to the Centre on a Nuffield Science Bursary to work with Dr Jim Reynolds and his graduate students. She spent time working on a project investigating the movements of fledgling versus adult birds in response to food supplementation. Elsa spent time in the Chaddesley Woods field site where she collected data from birds during ringing sessions and ‘supplemented’ those data with previous years’ work to examine various other aspects of how the feeding of birds influences their breeding biology. The photograph shows Elsa being handed one of the field site’s resident species that, although not the subject of her study, provided her with first-hand experience of handling small passerines. Please note that this summer it does not always rain in Chaddesley Woods as this photograph proves!