PROGRAM: Migratory Landbird Study Group (MLSG) Pre-EOU conference symposium Bangor August 2025

The MLSG and the COST Action EUFLYNET will be hosting a symposium on migratory land bird research on the weekend before the EOU conference of August 16^th and 17^th 2025. The symposium will consist of a first day (the 16^th) hosted by the COST Action, focussed on information exchange to facilitate the production of a toolkit to identify and prioritise effective management actions for migrant land birds along the flyway. Further large-scale projects will also be discussed in the afternoon of Day 1. The second day will be a more typical MLSG pre-EOU day, with invited talks, speed talks from ALL attendees and workshops to facilitate the networking aims of the MLSG. A key part of the program are the speed talks – everyone attending is invited to give a 4-minute talk, with no more than 4 slides summarising your work (including one obligatory slide summarising who you are, where you are and contact details). This is your best opportunity to update people on what you are doing, and to find out what others are doing in migrant landbird research right now. 

The MLSG – Migratory Landbird Study Group – is a network to connect people working on migrant landbirds, whether pure research or their conservation, to facilitate both (http://migrantlandbirds.org). The COST action arose from the MLSG and is part of these aims. The MLSG has now run successful pre-EOU conference symposia since 2015. These symposia have helped build the community of researchers necessary to tackle flyway scale problems, and are particularly focussed on establishing the links that help early career researchers make a difference. It is a friendly and relaxed environment to network, giving everyone an equal opportunity to showcase themselves and their work. Many important collaborations and much research started here!      

To attend please simply register for the additional days at the EOU – the 16^th and 17^th of August. There will be no added costs to join the pre-conference on the weekend, so it is free to join. But please could you make a £25 donation (or higher!) to the MLSG when you book for the EOU that we can use to bring early career migrant bird researchers from sub-Saharan Africa to the meeting and the EOU (COST will not fund researchers from sub-Saharan Africa). Please contact ivan.maggini@vetmeduni.ac.at if you need financial support for travels and accommodation, it may still be possible to draw on the EUFLYNET budget. For further information about the program, please email wrlc@st-and.ac.uk.

DRAFT PROGRAM:

Saturday 16^th August

COST ACTION: A toolkit to identify and prioritise effective management actions for migrant land birds along the flyway

08:30 – 09:20    Core Group meeting

09:20 – 09:40    Arrival and informal greetings

09:40 – 09:50    Welcome by the Action Chair

09:50 – 10:30    The potential and reality for using AI in identifying and using conservation evidence (invited talk)

10:30 – 11:00    Coffee break

11:00 – 11:45    WG1 discussion: the toolkit to identify and prioritise effective management actions for migrant landbirds along the flyway and other aims of the COST Action in light of the opportunity to use AI and the conservation co-pilot

11:45 – 12:30 Speed talks (all participants, 4-minute talks)

12:30 – 14:15    Lunch break

Afternoon

Workshops (parallel sessions) NOTE that more workshops can be held during this time upon request

14:00 – 15:00    ICARUS/Eurasian Kestrel migration (moderator Petra Sumasgutner)

14:00 – 17:00    (with coffee break 15:00 – 15:30) Ringing database for stopover analyses (moderator Ivan Maggini) see discussion points here: Discussion points ringing group – WG3 EOU pre-conference meeting Bangor 16 August 2025 (14:00 – 17:00) - Documenti Google

15:00 – 15:30    Coffee break

Final session – WG3 project updates

17:00 – 17:15    Gap analysis of literature on migratory species (Vojtech Brlik)

17:15 – 17:30    Motus Europe – a network of automated radiotelemetry (Lucy Mitchell)

17:30 – open end          Informal networking / out for dinner, beers, …

Sunday 17^th August

MLSG networking day: Get updated about the landbird migration research that is being done now and who is doing it

09:00 – 10:00    Plenary lecture: Ian Newton, 'The Palearctic-Afrotropical migration system'

10:00 – 10:45    Speed talk session (all participants, 4-minute talks).

10:45 – 11:15    Coffee break

11:15 – 12:30    Speed talks (all participants, 4-minute talks)

12:30 – 14:00    Lunch break

14:00 – 15:00    Plenary lecture: Petra Sumasgutner, ‘Uncovering conservation challenges with tracking technology’

15:00 – 15:45    Speed talks (all participants, 4-minute talks)

15:45 – 16:15    Coffee break

16:15 – 17:00    Speed talks (all participants, 4-minute talks)

17:00 – 18:00    Final remarks and discussion

Evening: Further disreputable networking