Introduction / The Dissertation begins

So... this is blogging. Interesting. I've been meaning to get on here for some time, people kept recommending that I start a blog, maybe for expression purposes, or maybe its because people got fed up of seeing my long winded statuses, moans and rants on facebook! (I jest). My aim is that this blog will become my gateway to talk about my uni work, my future endeavors and the trials of life that we all must face. So in the words of Khan,

"Shall we begin?"

The subject  

So year 3 of university is upon me but my dissertation journey began back in May. I knew from the start that I wanted to focus my study on an avian species. At first I thought about investigating native species (I had recently been inspired to really get my hooks into British wildlife by Springwatch, Autumnwatch & Winterwatch). I thought about placing cameras in nest boxes & investigating feeding & chick survival (actually based on a little thing they did on Springwatch, more on my love of that program later though). However, getting the relevant licenses, finding the time & measuring all the possible variables would have made it impossible & actually very expensive considering my time scale for the research project. May quickly drew to an end & it was back to basics, strip my ideas down to the bone. After several frustrating mind boggling lectures at uni later one thing that one of my lecturers said struck a cord, "what is your first love?" Then like a plank of obvious wood it hit me, birds of prey. My favourite group of animals, after all I have been working with them for 6 years.

Once I had the idea it was trying to expand it past 3 words which challenged me (that sounds worse written down then it did in my head), I did hours of research examining what was already out there, paper wise, & in all honesty there wasn't a lot, and that was the point. Whilst numerous ecological & conservation studies had been carried out on wild raptors, in captivity it was a different story, there were a few behavioural studies and some very influential authors in the area but nothing really up to date with recent animal behavioural advances. This struck me as something that needed looking at, after all birds of prey are quickly becoming a common site within most of Britain's zoos & wildlife parks, along with falconry becoming more popular within the general population. So time to pick a species & study.

The study & species

First on the list was the species, and I must say I went for a not very obvious choice (to my delight). I ended up picking the Striated Caracara (Phalcoboenus australis). First of all it has an amazing ecology & a checkered past. For many years it was persecuted harshly by the people of the Falkland Islands, severely decreasing its numbers, however, since the 1970's we began to protect this interesting little falcon until today in 2013 we are near full holding capacity around the country due to numerous successful breeding programs, along with a recovery of birds in the wild.

Striated Caracara at Cotswold Falconry Center

So with species sorted it was onto the study itself. After long deliberation and battles (with myself) I settled on a behavioural observation to help form a baseline of behaviours for these birds in captivity, along with an analyse & comparison of enclosure design and complexity. I got my plan through the ethics at university and then it was all a reality. Was i ready to go out into the world and do dissertation research? On my own. Hell I didn't feel like I was ready, but after the year I've had so far, it was time to take control, get back on the tracks and back on course, something that personal issues had all but destroyed earlier in the year.

Matt