Dan Gornall

Research Officer, Wetland Bioscience

About me

I have had a keen interest in nature from a very young age and this was quickly channelled into a passion for birds, taking up birding as a hobby and subsequently starting to learn to ring birds in my mid-teens. I completed my undergraduate degree in Wildlife Biology at Manchester Metropolitan University, during which time I also gained lots of field experience, helping with various research projects both in the UK and abroad, and doing a placement year at WWT Caerlaverock. Post university, I started work as Assistant Warden for the RSPB on the Dee Estuary. Following this I moved to a new role pursuing another keen interest of mine, bird migration, and worked as Assistant Warden at Fair Isle Bird Observatory for two years. It was after this when I joined WWT at the start of 2022.

In my spare time I can found doing much the same – birding and bird ringing, whether this be on one of my local patches or in a far flung place across the other side of the world.

My role

My role at WWT involves working on the Severn and Avon Vale Curlew project - carrying out fieldwork during the spring and summer months to monitor the ever-struggling breeding population, establishing what factors are leading to the decline and working with landowners to try and further protect Curlew. Over the winter, I am working on the Functionally Linked Land (FFL) project which aims to GPS track the movements of several species of waterbird around the Upper Severn Estuary Special Protection Area. I’m also assisting with other WWT bird ringing, ringing database management and project report writing.

Experience and interests

• Extensive ornithological fieldwork experience
• Extensive bird ringing experience; hold a BTO ‘C’ permit
• Involved in tracking work & fitted GPS devices to various bird species
• Great knowledge of general bird ecology, behaviour, ID & monitoring techniques

Publications

Mahamued, B., Donald, P., Collar, N., Marsden, S., Ndang’ang’a, P., Wondafrash, M., Adebe, Y. D., Bennett, J., Wotton, S. R., Gornall, D., Lloyd, H. 2022. Rangeland loss and population decline of the critically endangered Liben Lark Heteromirafra archeri in southern Ethiopia. Bird Conservation International, 32(1), 64-77.