"Measurements of lizard carcasses found near colonies indicate that cats preferentially prey on larger individuals, explaining both their reduced abundance and their smaller body size" @airamrodriguez.bsky.social et al. Biol Lett. @royalsociety.org 🧪🌎🐊

Natural history on canvas: Brueghel knew about bird-eating noctule bats Just published in @pnas.org, OA for all eyes Led by the one-and-only @romero-vidal.bsky.social, with the amazing @elena-tena.bsky.social and Sonia Sánchez-Navarro @ebdonana.bsky.social LINK: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

#ornithology www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We are looking for a motivated and collaborative MSc student to join us @humboldtuni.bsky.social for their thesis on body mass inequality in Arabian babblers. Preferably based in Berlin. Co-supervised with brilliant @benmocha.bsky.social Call: danaipapageorgiou.weebly.com/join-us.html

New paper: How do Egyptian vultures balance moult, migration, and breeding? Analyses of 740 moult records show that sedentary populations replace more feathers annually than migratory populations, reflecting different life-history trade-offs ➡️ vist.ly/59a5x #ornithology #birds #moult

Heading home from Kazakhstan after a very nice field trip: 55 pipits tagged and some extra samples collected for colleagues’ projects (ex Eurasian/Pallid Scops Owls for @pcapi.bsky.social) Many thanks to our colleagues of the Institute of Zoology of Almaty, see you soon! @pdvsky.bsky.social

The WISDOM OF CROWDS emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds! Excited to share our work published by @aaas.org in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

🧵 Excited to share my final PhD paper in Ecology Letters! A classic question in ecology is why some clades contain more species in local assemblages than others. We argue that part of the answer lies in the timing of speciation itself. doi.org/10.1111/ele....

We stopped for a few days to see @wielandheim.bsky.social & colleagues from the Zoology Institute, who were tagging Himalayan Rubythroats in Almaty. And next in the series of birds outside their breeding range: some Siberian Chiffchaffs, quite a bit farther south than expected. @pdvsky.bsky.social

New study in #BiologyLetters @royalsocietypublishing.org where we investigate the consequences of divergence in multiple mating signals for reproductive isolation doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... We show that species with more similar acoustic signals 🎶 are more likely to hybridize @ebdonana.bsky.social

We are now recruiting for a 3 year NERC-funded postdoc to study the transmission dynamics of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in migratory birds. Based in the Wild Microbiome Lab @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful Cornwall.

A nice surprise to find Yellow-browed Warblers (Phylloscopus inornatus) breeding in a relatively small larch forest at ~2,000m elevation in E Kazakhstan, in the same habitat as Hume’s Warbler. As far as we know, the species was not previously known to breed in Kazakhstan. @pdvsky.bsky.social

Some nice and unexpected bycatches from the last days while catching rubythroats: Black-throated Accentor & Water Pipit blackistoni. E Kazakhstan, with @pdvsky.bsky.social

And the star of the show: the Richard’s Pipit (Anthus richardi). We searched for the species along the Russian border, near where the birds that winter in Europe are breeding. Let’s see whether they all go east or west.

#NewPaperAlert! This one has a massive author list and has been a LONG time in coming, but is SO COOL! First, check out the first figure to get you interested! Manakins! Fruit! Sexual-selection in action (displays and Z:A chromosomal diversity)! Read on for the back story & link 1/n

Two Siberian Rubythroats (Calliope calliope) from yesterday, E Kazakhstan. Tagged with multi-sensor geolocators for @wielandheim.bsky.social project. w/ @pdvsky.bsky.social

An Eastern Common Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos golzii) from yesterday, NE Kazakhstan. What a strange looking bird! w/ @pdvsky.bsky.social

Excellent opportunity here: a 5 year senior research fellowship in Life Sciences (broadly defined) at All Souls College Oxford. Many opportunities to work with the diverse & inclusive community here in @biology.ox.ac.uk here in the brand new Life & Mind Buiilding www.asc.ox.ac.uk/post-doctora...

The Banter See breeding season in numbers so far: 226 males and 210 females (aged 2 - 25) have been registered, 319 clutches have been produced, 257 chicks have hatched, 93 blood samples have been collected and 48 birds have been caught for our geolocator-project.

New paper in @pnas.org - using playback experiments we provide further evidence that bottlenose dolphins can use individual identity signals + social memory to guide decision-making. Female dolphins use individual vocal labels to track coercive males | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Happy to see my PhD work on birdsong complexity published today! doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 🐦‍⬛ 🎶 ⬇️ Why are some birdsongs simple and some extremely complex? The answer is long thought to be ‘sexual selection favouring complex signals’. But - really?

Researchers have identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation. https://scim.ag/4nTQ3nq

How to force a @nature.com retraction and get zero credit for it. A short thread on "invisible correctors" and bibliographic erasure in top-tier journals. 🧵 Read the full behind-the-scenes story at @retractionwatch.com below. Our preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... #OpenScience #ZebraFinch

Our (Jenny Dunn, Carolina Chagas, @willjsmith.bsky.social) paper on the evolution of island Wrens is finally out @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We describe the evolution of island gigantism in the St Kilda and Shetland subspecies. academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

📢New warbler research!📢 A phylogeny of Myioborus (the youngest genus of warblers) plus a hypothesis for how they diversified in South America and a gene causing a color difference between hybridizing species. It was great co-leading this with Laura Céspedes Arias. doi.org/10.1093/evol...

On 22 May I presented the third chapter of my PhD on global Barn Swallow migration at Friday4Birds 🐦 Talk: Wind, barriers, and connectivity in global Barn Swallow migration 🌬️ 🌍 The audience was as international as the swallows I study! youtu.be/nij5xAKAo7I?...

Human shielding from wolves helps Golden jackal range expansion - cool paper #ecology www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I think a lot about how mountain species are responding to warming temperatures so it was great to team up with @suzetteflantua.bsky.social @kjfeeley.bsky.social Christi McCain & Jenny McGuire to write a review of sp responses to both modern AND Quaternary warming www.nature.com/articles/doi...

This week just keeps getting better, with today’s clear highlight this Northern Parula, a quality find by @tomwright1.bsky.social this morning!

Interacting effects of human presence and landscape modification on birds and mammals | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Swimming invasive snakes colonize Mediterranean islets by active swimming, then wipe out Endangered endemic lizard populations. A hidden pathway for biological invasions with profound conservation implications, as they re-shape island ecosystems 🐍 🌊 #OpenAccess in 'Ecology' Picture: Rubén Casas

Some migration info from 7 Whinchats (Saxicola rubetra) tagged with multi-sensor loggers: kind of loop migration, spring Sahara crossing up to ~5,000 m despite their tiny size (~16g), and unusually prolonged flights both at autumn and spring. 🪶🏔️ Full paper here: doi.org/10.1007/s10336-026-02409-1

Out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org - we show that crab spiders (the ones you usually see ambushing pollinators on flowers 🕷️🌸) get worse at hunting if their eyes are covered!🫣 Sounds obvious? It's actually quite surprising, here's why... 👀 (1/8) royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Some kids are always on the move – others prefer a good book. We show that early-life behaviour in golden eagles 🦅 cascades across life stages: more active nestlings fledge earlier, explore more, and disperse sooner. tinyurl.com/3sb8jnsz @vogelwarte.bsky.social @safilab.bsky.social #ornithology

How can we reconcile #SexualSelection in plants and animals? Some thoughts now published in a review led by Jeanne Tonnabel (@isemevol.bsky.social) in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

And it seems that the same bird as the one from 2024 was still present in autumn 2025, moving between the two islands of the western group, Flores and Corvo!

This was a 1st for me. A pair of light morph Kermadec petrels. They only makeup 8% of birds on the Phillip Is. Norfolk colony-most are dark morph (see previous post). The calling male has only been back on land 3 months- having delivered a 34 month fledging track for my PhD. #SuperSeabirdSunday

Cool new preprint led by Martins Briedis: Eurasian wrynecks from Germany use very different migration strategies (from S Europe to sub-Saharan Africa). Multi-sensor logger data show long migration trips are costly, but warming winters may soon favor staying in S Europe doi.org/10.64898/202...

Metal Molluscs are clearly having a moment!

Today’s tagging: “Iberian” Dunnock (Prunella modularis mabbotti) in the Pyrenees with Paul’s team @pdvsky.bsky.social @paulcuchot.bsky.social #ornithology

Look who arrived as well! 147 little field assistants made their way into one of our incubators. These laboratory-bred kissing bugs will help us collect blood samples from incubating terns. Stored in a fake egg for c. 20 minutes, they collect blood, which we then gratefully collect from them.

Post-doc opportunity in raptor conservation at The FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology in Cape Town, South Africa - with @megmurg.bsky.social and me. South African Citizen or have a valid work visa. science.uct.ac.za/fitzpatrick/... #Ornithology #RaptorResearch #AfricanOrnithology

Available only at birdsoftheworld.org, the Phylogeny Explorer offers a fun way to explorie avian evolution, discover closely related species, and grasp the timescales at which they evolved. Check it out/1 birdsoftheworld.org/bow/phylogeny

Do you know the #ScientistAtWork photo competition? Next June 2026! Here: "Callie Veelenturf measures pH, conductivity and temperature near a leatherback sea turtle’s nest during research in Equatorial Guinea." 🧪 #Science #SciComm 1- www.nature.com/articles/d41... 2- www.nature.com/immersive/sc...

Calling #WildlifeRescue centres across Europe! Do you have data on #swifts? We’re studying how heatwaves affect rescued chicks, and we’d love to collaborate. Quick survey, no data sharing yet. Info: giuliamasoero.github.io/project/resc... #Ornithology #ClimateChange @alecorr-castro.bsky.social

Nice bike loop out of Montpellier to add species on the green list 🚴‍♂️ 🪶 Fun mix of pushing the bike through snow, then later through sand and mosquitoes in Camargue. +9 species with some cool ones: Rock Partridge, Hazel & Black Grouse, Common Eider, RT Pipit, Collared & Medit Flycatcher..

Here is our Biol. Rev. paper on the downsides of extra-pair behaviour in birds, expertly led (and summarised) by @jorgensoraker.bsky.social 🪶🧪

🥳 New paper alert 🥳 The first of the data chapters from my DPhil, and the works from my first few field seasons on Skomer, is out! "Shearwaters make efficient navigational decisions, even at very fine scales" - doi.org/10.1242/jeb.... A huge thank you to everyone involved 🩵

Repeated trends in altitudinal gradients of diversity: How habitat filtering and biotic interactions structure ecological communities Journal of Animal Ecology besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Adopting novel food is vital to colonize novel environments, but what is the role of social learning? Study of urban #cockatoos by @clevercockierp.bsky.social shows them to rapidly adopt novel food via #SocialLearning, with juveniles showing conformist preferences @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4uq6NVq