I am interested in the mechanisms used by animals to navigate through space and the cognitive representations which underpin these abilities. My DPhil is funded by the Leverhulme Trust under the supervision of Tim Guilford and Ollie Padget, and aims to reveal how shearwaters navigate effectively across apparently featureless oceans. My research will use high-resolution tracking of Manx shearwaters in free flight under both natural and manipulated conditions to shed light on elements of spatial cognition that may be overlooked by traditional displacement experiments. In particular, I will focus on outward journeys, in terms of the cognition that underpins their execution and how information gathered from them is used to facilitate subsequent homeward navigation.
