You can find previous “By The Numbers” posts here: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. I didn’t do one in 2021. Goodness me I’m feeling old. 6 International trips this year (Australia x2, Canada x2, New York, Pitcairn). Was it fun? Yes, absolutely. Was it too much? Yes, absolutely. 7 Museums visited this year: Toronto, New York, Oxford, Manchester, Bolton,...

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A slightly less regular series in the “year end/new year” stable of posts, you can read past attempts at setting professional goals here: 2023, 2020, 2019, and 2018. Actually do some professional developmentIt’s on everyone’s work plan every year, and it always seems to fall off the bottom (followed quickly by research and actual specimen curation). I’ve a...

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You can find previous “By The Numbers” posts here: 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. I didn’t do one in 2021. Wow, that’s a lot of numbers. 5988The number of emails sent, professionally, this year. Second lowest since I started tracking! Hopefully it’ll stay below the 6k mark in 2024. 1043This year’s citation count. I wouldn’t normally include something like...

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Hello? *taps mic* Is this thing on? Judging by my complete lack of activity and the fact that readership had plummeted to record lows, the answer may well be “no”. But hey ho, it’s a fun thing to do, look back at the year that was. I think if there was a theme for the...

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In January 2018, I started noting down some goals I had for the year ahead, both professional and personal. My last post in this category was January 2020, and we all know how well the intervening years went in terms of long-term planning. Ooft. You can read the 2020, 2019, and 2018 editions. So with...

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You can find previous “By The Numbers” posts here: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. I didn’t do one in 2021. 5 Years I’ve been in this job as the curator in charge of birds at the Natural History Museum. It’s going well! Though to be honest, I still feel like the “new kid” sometimes. 9 Papers published this...

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In January 2013, I was a postdoc, about 18 months through what would be a 36-month position with Environment (and Climate Change) Canada in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It was the heady days of Stephen Harper’s premiership in Canada, noteworthy for his right-wing anti-evidence, death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to public services, and the muzzling of government scientists (where to...

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Alas, the ongoing crumbling of Twitter means I’ve been locked out because of a glitch in their two-factor authentication. After a decade, nearly 16k followers, and 130k tweets, I’ve got mixed feelings. Hence a rare revival of the blog. On the one hand, Müsk is trash, and I’d been slowly disengaging from the site since...

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Read previous years’ By the Numbers: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 Top posts by views Amusing bird names explained: Fluffy-backed Tit-babbler (2016) Personal academic websites for faculty & grad students: the why, what, and how (2013) Free project ideas in ecology & conservation (2020) What’s in an affiliation? (2016) Overseas field courses and equity, diversity & inclusion (2020) How did we learn that birds migrate (and not to the moon)? A stab in the dark (2013) The advantages…

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Well, it’s certainly been a year. Looking back at the last 12 months, it seems unfathomable that anything close to normality could persist, and yet despite lockdowns, a global pandemic, massive curtailing of international travel, and a massive shift in how we work, we try to carry on. Which may not have been the best solution, to be honest. It’s a bit of square peg/round hole. And that is likely to be the source of…

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