Post-Doc – Estimation of terrestrial migratory bird flows through the English Channel from weather radars (F/M/X)
- Reference : FEM-SAS-2026-014
- Position type: Fixed-term contract
- Duration: 18 month
- Localisation: Brest (29), Nantes (44), Marseille (13) or Le Havre (76) - France Energies Marines
- Download the offer
Job Description
The growing number of offshore wind farms raises critical environmental and societal questions about their impact on avifauna. This question is at the heart of the environmental integration team of France Energies Marines and the AVOCET R&D project of which this position is a part. The AVOCET project aims to deepen knowledge of the terrestrial migratory bird flows across the English Channel. To do this, we propose to rely on both French and UK weather radars to monitor bird density and flight directions along the different coastlines. These bird flows could provide crucial information to describe bird migratory routes for both prenuptial and postnuptial migrations. It could also help estimating the probability of migrating birds at the vicinity of existing or planned OWF and the associated environmental conditions.
Missions
The objective of this post-doctoral fellowship is therefore to develop tools for the estimation of bird flows from French and UK weather radars. The candidate will focus on improving the detection of birds from weather radar echoes. Indeed, existing tools are limited to distinguish bird echoes from other weather radar echoes such as precipitation fringes, sea clutter or insect echoes. To this end, the objective will be to (1) help expanding existing datasets of labelled weather radar echoes from UK and French radars (2) develop a classification tool to accurately classify bird echoes using deep learning tools (Lin et al. 2019; Scheckler et al. 2023; Sun et al. 2024) and (3) get insights on bird echoes characteristics and on weather radar biases for bird migration monitoring.
The enhanced detection of bird echoes from UK and French radars will further be used to:
- Estimate bird flows on English Channel coastlines for the last decade
- Describe bird migratory routes for both prenuptial and postnuptial migrations
- Estimate the bird density, and flight direction at current and future offshore wind farms
The post-doc will collaborate at the European level with Météo-France and the University of Leeds.
Required Skills
Initial training
PhD in quantitative ecology or deep learning
Specific knowledge
- Good knowledge of bird migration ecology
- General understanding of radar remote sensing
- Experience with deep learning tools (pytorch, tensorflow, etc.)
- Programming in Python and/or R
Professional qualities
- Ability to work in a team environment in an interdisciplinary research environment
- Autonomy, rigor, sense of organization
- Analytical and synthesis skills
The +: Interest in environmental issues and marine renewable energies
WARNING: If you are unable to submit your application via our website, please send it by e-mail to contactrh@france-energies-marines.org, specifying the job reference in the subject field.
Job : Post-Doc – Estimation of terrestrial migratory bird flows through the English Channel from weather radars (F/M/X)
Reference : FEM-SAS-2026-014
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