Current Work

Bird Ecologist

Waardenburg Ecology · Apr 2026 – Present

Research and data analysis with a primary focus on offshore avian ecology and environmental impact assessments.

• Quantifying the space use of Great Black-backed Gulls in relation to offshore wind farms and marine protected areas using GPS-tracking data, Hidden Markov Models, and Continuous-Time Movement Models, supporting internal and external reporting, collision risk model parameterisation, and scientific publications.
• Developing survival analyses of species such as Little Gull using long-term ring-recovery data to assess demographic trends.
• Analysing field-based bird collision monitoring data to estimate collision mortality at wind farms.
• Conducting aerial seabird surveys over the North Sea, identifying and quantifying seabirds and marine mammals from a small aircraft.
• Preparing ecological background reports for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Appropriate Assessments for Natura 2000 sites.

Co-coordinator of the Wader Working Group

Central Asian Conservation Network · Aug 2026 – Present

More details will follow soon.

Co-Chair of the Board

Batumi Raptor Count · 2018 – Present

Leading one of the world's largest volunteer-based migration monitoring projects, counting over one million raptors annually at a key corridor in the Republic of Georgia.

• Managing diverse research, conservation, and education projects within an international citizen-science NGO, building international partnerships and maintaining relations with local NGOs and governmental bodies.
• Initiator and coordinator of Flyway Monitoring Traineeships (launched 2024), training young conservationists from the Caucasus, Middle East, and Central Asia in structured bird monitoring, in collaboration with OSME.
• Initiator of the first full-season spring raptor migration counts for the Batumi bottleneck (2019, 2020 & 2022), leading the formal analysis and publication of the results.
• Co-leading fundraising efforts that have raised over €120k since 2022 for migration monitoring and conservation work against illegal raptor killing.
• Coordinating autumn and spring migration counts with 50+ international volunteers every season, including field training, identification presentations, and monitoring protocol development.

Management Committee Member

EUFLYNET Cost Action · Apr 2025 – Present

A European flyway research network for the effective conservation of migrant landbirds.

• Representing the Netherlands in the management committee, contributing to and voting over working plans and budgets.
• Member of Working Group 3, focused on establishing research priorities and Species Action Plans.

Validator

Observation.org · Dec 2021 – Present

A global citizen-science platform for collecting and sharing biodiversity data.

• Validating bird observations within the country of Georgia based on photos, sound recordings, and descriptions.