Hector - a brief bio. Hector is originally from Scotland where he began birding at the age of 11. For the first 15 years of his birding life he was an enthusiastic amateur with a leaning toward research projects involving banding, moult studies, and distributional projects. He began his PhD work on the reproductive ecology of northern lapwings at the University of Glasgow in the 1980s and his post-doctoral research on breeding Eurasian dotterels in the late 1980s. Hector moved to the US in 1990 and has subsequently lived in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Vermont. He now runs his own scientific consulting company carrying out federal and state-funded research into the likely effects of climate change on ecosystems, and the risks posed by contaminants in the environment. He regularly publishes the results of this research in scientific journals. He also lectures regularly on his research, and for a number of years taught arctic/alpine ecology at the University of Colorado. In his spare time, Hector likes nothing better than to go on birding trips to more or less remote parts of the globe. Over the last few years he has visited Ecuador (4 trips), South Africa, Kenya, Peru, Australia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Japan, and India. He has also birded in many European countries. He lives, with his wife, Suzanne, in the quiet, rural village of Dummerston, Vermont.