It is a wide-ranging subject Steve but fortunately we aren't required to go in to a great deal of depth as the extreme maximum word count of the assignment is only 2,200 words. However, I can see that my greatest challenge of all will be staying within that guideline.
The very vague assignment brief states that the aim of the assignment is to study 'Why a specific group of species are threatened?' Two examples that were given were 'Plants of the Antarctic' and 'Fresh water fishes of South America'. I think Britain's migrant breeders falls into the category nicely and with British birds being my main area of interest and the reason I am studying wildlife in the first place, I'd be daft not to choose to study them for this assignment.
Many thanks Steve and Henry for your help. Any more advice from any other individuals much wiser than myself would be much appreciated. Also, if anyone would be interested in reading through my assignment once it is complete, they would be more than welcome to.
Many thanks.
Scott.
-- Edited by Scott Reid on Wednesday 7th of March 2012 08:02:55 AM
Some migrants are declining and some are not. Some migrate short distances and others travel from pole to pole (almost). If you pick a few species to compare and contrast you can search for full details via the BTO website (as Henry suggested) in the Bird Facts pages
http://www.bto.org/about-birds/birdfacts
at the bottom of each species page are links to scientific papers which may be of interest.
Hi Scott. I'm not currently abreast of the academic literature on the subject but the BTO are actively researching this broad area with their 'Out of Africa' project. I believe it is looking for potential issues (habitat loss, drought etc) faced by the migrant birds away from the relatively well-studied area of Europe.
More here - http://www.bto.org/support-us/current-appeals/out-africa
I am about to start working on an assignment for my Species Conservation module at University (I am studying Wildlife Conservation and Zoo Biology at The University of Salford). My chosen topic for the assignment is to study the reasons behind the decline of Britain's migrant breeding birds. I have found a few journals/articles online for referencing but I was wondering if anyone has or knows of any journals/articles that I can borrow/look-out-for that will help increase my sources of data and information?