Rudi Drent Chair in Global flyway ecology: Annual Report 2019-2020

This report addresses the activities of the Rudi Drent Chair in Global Flyway Ecology carried out between July 2019–July 2020. The Global Flyway Ecology Chair was established at the University of Groningen (RUG) in May 2012 in a covenant of RUG with BirdLife Netherlands (VBN) and World Wildlife Fund Netherlands (WNF). In 2018, at the initiative of the Faculty of Science and Engineering of RUG, the Chair was named Rudi Drent Chair in Global Flyway Ecology, in recognition to the distinguished work of Prof. Rudi Drent for global flyway research and conservation. From 2019, the Rudi Drent Chair also receives support from Triodos Foundation. The Chair has continued working around the globe under the international umbrella of the Global Flyway Network (GFN). The Rudi Drent Chair would not have achieved the current level of work without a strong support from the above-mentioned institutions as well as an exceptional multidisciplined and multi-national team that work closely with the Chair. Special thanks to Yvonne Verkuil who assisted the Chair since the start, to Bastiaan Blaauw for building and maintaining one of the most outstanding and viewer-friendly online bird tracking websites “https://www.globalflywaynetwork.org/”, and to Joke Bakker (RUG) and Joyce Rietveld (RUG) for their significant help in keeping the book of the various activities. We are also grateful for the many contributions of Tienke Koning, who helped the Chair at many fronts.