Home at last! After more than a decade in the UK, I am delighted to have returned to my homeland and joined the ranks of BirdLife Cyprus. Having studied Zoology at university, I had my first taste of working with BirdLife Cyprus doing my Master’s project on the Cyprus Scops Owl, and then continued to pursue my PhD on the ecology and conservation of the farmland birds of Cyprus.

It was during my PhD that I fell in love with the countryside and biodiversity of our island, and I promised myself I would return one day for good. But first, I spent a few years at BirdLife International, working on international projects, including the European Red List of Birds, which was launched in 2015. When the opportunity presented itself to join BirdLife Cyprus, I was very excited to come on board and contribute to the invaluable work this organisation does in championing nature conservation in Cyprus.

I am really excited to be taking over from Martin Hellicar as Monitoring and Research Coordinator and working with our willing volunteers to deliver BirdLife Cyprus’ monitoring schemes and directly support conservation action for birds in Cyprus. The boots I have to fill are very big indeed, so I feel privileged to be in this position and I look forward to great things ahead.

Christina Ieronymidou