After a week of attacks and personal abuse as a result of being head of school, it has been a relief to get back to Cornwall. Rather to my surprise over 20 people want to commit to running a COST network on predictive systems ecology. This is great except that I now have to make the application, which as usual (this being European money) is a Byzantine nightmare. My three CSC applicants had their offers confirmed by Queen Mary this week, if they are all supported by CSC then we will know a lot more about swallows in China soon. The publishers seem to appreciate my Behavioural Ecology book outline and want a few changes before progressing with it - I do know its pointless for all reasons except personal gratification. Finally, I am almost at the end of sorting out the parameter set for SORTIE - at least the basic version as run by Steve Pacala, the more complex version like the one used by David Coomes will need more work. Aris spent some time in London this week and we are almost there with results from the breeding season evolution simulations. So still going forwards then!
