We nurture talent across the flyways. Each year, PhD students and early-career researchers join our work, bringing different backgrounds, nationalities, and skills that help us connect global ideas with local knowledge. This year, two new PhD students joined BirdEyes to work on the Black-tailed Godwit project, each focusing on a different piece of the puzzle of chick survival in the Dutch agricultural landscape.
Among them, Roos Winters recently began her PhD at the University of Groningen in collaboration with BirdEyes. Her work focuses on the diet and growth of Black-tailed Godwit chicks in Friesland, the Netherlands. She studies how agricultural landscapes shape the insects available to young chicks and how this affects their growth during the earliest and most vulnerable stages of life.
Roos’s interest in birds and ecology grew steadily throughout her academic journey. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and her Master’s degree in Conservation Biology at the University of Groningen. Along the way, she gained valuable hands-on experience as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Groningen and as a research intern and assistant at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ). These opportunities allowed her to build strong field and research skills while working closely with scientists and students
During her master’s studies, Roos spent time working in distant and often challenging field locations, experiences that strengthened her connection to bird ecology. She studied the breeding behaviour of Barnacle Geese on Svalbard and later travelled to Alaska to investigate the diet of Red Knot chicks. Since starting her PhD in February 2026, just before the godwits returned to Friesland, she has been preparing for an intensive field season and looks forward to following chicks through their earliest days of life.
Alongside Roos, Simon Vandepitte, a 26-year-old Belgian wader enthusiast, brings a deep curiosity about how birds manage to survive in demanding environments. His fascination with birds has taken him to striking landscapes, from the fjells of Lapland, where he studied Eurasian Dotterels, to the coastal meadows of the Bothnian Bay, where he worked on Ruff behaviour. He has now begun his PhD at the University of Groningen in collaboration with BirdEyes, focusing on the survival and habitat use of Black-tailed Godwit chicks in the Dutch dairy landscape.
His project aims to understand the landscape from a chick’s point of view by exploring how predation, food availability, and vegetation structure influence chick movement, condition, and survival. Time spent in the field quickly shows that survival depends on many interacting factors—vegetation, insects, and predators all playing a role. Understanding this balance is key to improving meadow bird conservation.
Much of this work takes place on land managed by farmers, making their collaboration essential. Meeting farmers, walking their land, and listening to their experiences reminds us that this landscape is shared—not only by birds, but also by people.
As godwits return from their wintering grounds and begin nesting, both projects are entering an exciting and demanding phase. Soon, chicks will hatch, and every observation will help reveal how these young birds survive their first weeks of life. Together, the efforts of these two PhD students bring us closer to understanding chick survival and to protecting the landscapes that meadow birds depend on.
Read more about the project Roos and Simon are involved in
