In August 2025, I attended the 15th European Ornithologists’ Union (EOU) conference in Bangor, Wales, facilitated by the BOU member attendance grant. It was my first time at such a big international conference. I travelled with colleagues from the University of Milan, and I also had the chance to reconnect with researchers from Vogelwarte (Switzerland) whom I’d met the previous year during my COST Action EUFLYNET Short-Term Scientific Mission. Throughout the conference, I met and spoke with people in my field, both early-career researchers and more senior scientists, from many different countries. It was an amazing opportunity to exchange ideas and perspectives with people outside my own research group, which is something we don’t often get to do in our day-to-day work.
The conference was exciting and intellectually stimulating, with a packed programme of talks and parallel sessions. At times, it was a bit overwhelming because it was difficult to choose which session to attend when so many interesting talks were happening simultaneously. I was particularly inspired by some presentations on bird migration. For example, Sissel Sjoberg gave a fascinating talk on how diurnal migrants travel, sharing results on migration activity and energy use in Barn Swallows. Her findings showed that they migrate at night, especially when crossing the Sahara Desert, something I didn’t expect!
I had the pleasure of presenting on the second day of the EOU in Symposium 7: Filling the knowledge gaps on small landbird migration in poorly known migratory systems using individual tracking. I was a bit nervous beforehand because the room was full and several authors of the papers I cited were sitting in the room. As a PhD student giving a talk at my first EOU, it felt a bit intimidating. In the end though, the presentation went well and I even had some great conversations with those same researchers afterwards, about my work on global Barn Swallow migration. We also discussed potential future collaborations.
It was also great to finally meet in person some of the collaborators involved in the main focus of my PhD: the Global Barn Swallow Migration project. The aim of this project is to combine data from multiple populations to understand how migration patterns vary across continents. We are conducting a global migratory connectivity analysis, exploring how factors like migration distance and ecological barriers influence migration timing and strategies. The project is part of the COST Action EUFLYNET framework, which has been essential in building our international network. So far, we’ve partnered with 19 researchers from 18 countries and collected data on nearly 300 Barn Swallows. After countless email exchanges about geolocator tracking data, it was fantastic to finally talk face-to-face with these collaborators. Our discussions helped strengthen existing partnerships and move the project forward. I’m convinced that even a brief conversation at a conference can spark a new collaboration or provide the momentum needed to advance a project or analysis that has been stuck.
I also really enjoyed the Fledgling event. As an Early Career Researcher (ECR), it was a great opportunity to talk with more experienced colleagues, especially about the challenges of work–life balance in research. Like many ECRs, I sometimes worry about what a long-term career in science or academia actually looks like, and whether maintaining a healthy balance is realistic. The conversation at the Fledgling event helped me understand what to expect: academic work isn’t always a 9-to-5 job, and it can be demanding, but it’s still possible to build a fulfilling career while keeping a sustainable work–life balance.
The last night at the EOU was the most fun. After the social dinner, a band played traditional Welsh music, and soon we were all dancing traditional Welsh dances together! It was the perfect wrap-up for an interesting but intense conference, my first EOU. It was great to see everyone join in, from senior scientists to early-career researchers, all laughing and dancing side by side. It reminded me that we’re all human, and that even the “scary” senior researchers are just people too. Something to remember the next time I read their papers!
Figure 1. Susan presents her research during the Symposium 7 at the EOU 2025 conference in Bangor © Ioannis Kalaitzakis.
