EBCC celebrates two winners of the BTO Marsh Awards

Marsh Award is run in partnership with the Marsh Christian Trust with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and is awarded to an ornithologist who is making a significant contribution to the field.

Amongst other things, the Award considers the significance of research undertaken, contributions to training and capacity building within ornithology, alignment with the BTO’s mission, and engagement with the wider ornithological community.

Nominations are judged by an independent panel of experts who consider each application against agreed judging criteria.

Marsh Award for International Ornithology

This award recognizes an individual scientist whose work on the international stage has had a significant influence on British ornithology, especially as reflected in the work of BTO scientists and volunteers.

Dr. Petr Voříšek is based at the Czech Society of Ornithology (CSO) in Prague. Since 2002 Petr has been the coordinator of the Pan European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS). Through many connections facilitated by him, this scheme today belongs to bright examples of European cooperation in biodiversity conservation and successfully produces species trends for 170 common birds and indicators based on the data from 28 European countries on a routine annual basis.

Although this has been a team effort, much of its success is owed to Petr’s leadership. This has encompassed frequent meetings with the funders, running training courses all over Europe, or organising annual workshops.

Petr has also played an important role in the EBCC’s second European Breeding Bird Atlas, coordinating the fieldwork, helping to develop the methodologies or running training courses, and atlasing expeditions throughout countries in eastern and southern Europe.

Read more about Petr´s career and the list of previous winners here.

Marsh Award for Innovative Ornithology

Celebrates an important contribution which takes forward our understanding of avian ecology or conservation science.

The BTO Marsh Award for Innovative Ornithology went to the EuroBirdPortal team. “The portal, which brings together over 80 institutions in 29 countries, has revolutionised the way we view data”, says BTO.

Eurobirdportal (EBP) is one of the three core projects of the European Bird Census Council. The purpose of EBP is to establish and maintain a European data repository based on aggregated data from online bird recording portals from across Europe.

Read more about EuroBird Portal and the list of previous winners here.

All the Marsh Awards medallists are reviewed here.

Congratulations!