Tyler gained her PhD in Zoology at University of Cambridge, where she also met and married Lindsay Tyler, a veterinarian. Tyler's doctoral thesis was on the free-range ponies in the New Forest. Following her marriage, Tyler moved with her family to Wiltshire where she conducted a study of the area's Grey Wagtails and became the most prolific female British bird ringer. The Tyler family moved first to the United Arab Emirates and then to Ethiopia in 1973.
