Marsh Award for Ornithology

The 2012 winner is Jeremy Wilson

Jeremy Wilson, pictured right, Head of Research at RSPB Scotland, is an outstanding researcher and science communicator.

Jeremy obtained his PhD, on the behaviour of Great Tits, from the University of Edinburgh in 1989. A MAFF-funded project on organic farming for the BTO led him towards a career dedicated to understanding the mechanisms through which agricultural intensification has caused declines in bird populations.

He has studied the response of individual species such as the Skylark, Yellowhammer and Linnet to agriculture, the effects of agricultural processes, such as the use of pesticides and GMHT crops, and agricultural systems such as biodiversity responses to organic farming. He has published well over 100 peer reviewed papers, made contributions to more than 15 book chapters and countless scientific reports, and supervised 11 PhD studentships.

Jeremy has sat on a great many groups to advise Government on biodiversity, including the Scottish Biodiversity Forum Biodiversity Science Group and the Scottish Government Rural Environment, while he was Chair of the Indicators Working Group for the Scottish Biodiversity Forum. He has had huge intellectual input to biodiversity conservation, most recently in Scotland.

As well as developing and leading all this science, Jeremy is a long-term dedicated volunteer bird recorder and active bird ringer with Lothian Ringing Group, spending a large part of his personal time contributing to bird monitoring activities and encouraging others to get involved. He has been an unwavering ambassador for the long-term monitoring of birds, and a supporter of BTO-led monitoring programmes. He willingly lent his support to the recent BTO Scotland Building Bird Monitoring (BBMS) initiative to encourage and train more Scottish volunteers for bird monitoring. He previously sat on the BTO Ringing Committee and on SOC Council, and was on the editorial board of Ringing and Migration and Bird Study. Jeremy is actively involved with Butterfly Conservation, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and the Isle of May Observatory Trust.

In January 2009, Jeremy was awarded an Honorary Chair within the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Stirling.