Male Varied Thrush in a southern Vancouver Island forest today. I’ve ringed 10 first-years over the last two weeks here, but this was my first adult! 🪶

Our paper on tinamou evolution is finally out in @systbiol.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Granger et al. Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #ornithology #seabirds

New paper out about elevational shifts in European birds lead by @josephinecouet.bsky.social: "Solar Radiation Affects Bird Distributions but Not Elevational Shifts in European Mountains" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @emmamarjakangas.bsky.social @andreasantangeli.bsky.social @ebcc.info

I am recruting a #postdoc for a project investigating the evolution of avian heat tolerance in @erc.europa.eu project #HotLife. Fieldwork over broad latitudinal gradients, common-garden experiments, and more. Read more and apply👇 shorturl.at/WA1Qa Would appreciate a re-post! @evoldir.bsky.social

Our latest issue is out! www.cell.com/current-biol... On the cover, a male Victoria's riflebird doing his best to dazzle a female (or screaming at the white blob?) Paper & dispatch here👇 www.cell.com/current-biol... www.cell.com/current-biol...

Our new @science.org paper is out! Cuckoos and hosts are locked in a coevolutionary arms race over egg mimicry. But how are these egg types inherited, and could this drive speciation? We sequenced hundreds of genomes to find out! doi.org/10.1126/scie... 🧵1/6

Why are Procellariiform seabirds most diverse in the Southern Hemisphere? Our study found that wind patterns and time since evolutionary origin best explain the extratropical peak in breeding species richness of these remarkable seabirds. 🐦💨 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A 1st winter male SIBERIAN RUBYTHROAT caught on North Ronaldsay!!! #RareBirdsUK #BirdingScotland #OrkneyBirding

ebird.org/tripreport/4... A short stay on Corvo finally turned into a long one due to a plane issue for almost a week.. While extra days were slow, first days were exciting: best was finding the 2nd Ruby-crowned Kinglet (8th WP), plus some nice extra species (Cape May, Protho & Magnolia Warblers) 🪶

Also check out the great summary perspectives in @science.org by Lindsay Zanno featuring @nataliajagielska.bsky.social’s incredible illustration of the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper today in @science.org: we date the Naashoibito Member (New Mexico) to 66.4–66.0 Ma, coeval with the Hell Creek, with important remarks on pre-extinction dinosaur diversity & regionalisation in North America 🦖🦕☄1/ Art: @nataliajagielska.bsky.social 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨 2nd master’s project! Interested in bird migration & genomics? 🧬🐦 Use whole-genome data to trace the recent colonization of Ouessant Island by Blue Tits and explore how irruptive migratory events can shape colonization dynamics. Please share! #ornithology www.vogelwarte.ch/de/wir/mitar...

See the new PhD opportunity in our group. I can highly recommend our Professor Heiko Schmajohann as PhD supervisor!

NEW PAPER in #ornithology shows that a single pigmentation gene can affect different body parts and lead to the variety of colour morphs in #wheatears: buff.ly/PW3qpyj

Great Crested Flycatcher wasn't at the top of my list of potential Nearctic vagrants given that it is very rare in Atlantic Canada, the Caribbean and especially Bermuda (below) islands which are a good barometer for vagrancy. Hopefully Ash-throated Flycatcher has been ruled out #UKBirding 1/2

Very very happy to see my PhD work out! Congrats to the whole team 🎉🎉🎉

The structure of the annual migratory flight activity in a songbird | royalsocietypublishi... | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | #ornithology 🪶

ebird.org/tripreport/4... Our last few days on Flores were epic as the westerlies finally kicked in. A RE Vireo almost on the ground in the village started the fall, and we got 5 Am. landbirds within 200 m of the coast that same day, finishing with a nice Black & white Warbler! Now it’s Corvo time!

Large citizen science datasets are powerful tools for biodiversity science, but they may have biases. Nice new paper from @louisbackstrom.bsky.social et al. showing that for eBird and Birdtrack lists there is a tendency for rare species to be over-represented onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

What a stunning bird to come across today: the rare dark morph of the Atlantic Islands subspecies of the Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla heineken)!

Still a few birds to find on Flores island (Bobolink, 2 Northern Harriers, American Black Duck and some waders), but the island has gradually emptied, the last few days have been very quiet. Now just waiting for new westerly winds 🤞

Hopefully, we should soon know thanks to genoscaping whether vagrants seen in Western Europe come from these western populations or from further east. Even though it’s tempting to link these two increases, nothing is certain for now.. @joewynnbirds.bsky.social

NEW JOB in #ornithology with @RSPBScience to oversee research in #Wales with #seabirds and #waders: buff.ly/qkTVU6m

Two great first days of birding on Flores (Azores) with the french/swiss team: Dickcissel, Ovenbird, YB Cuckoo, 5 RE Vireos and Subalpine Warbler(!). Plenty more to find, as good numbers seem to have arrived quite a while ago. The island is huge (and beautiful), and we have it all to ourselves.

A really intriguing vagrant Blackpoll Warbler resighting from California; parallels to be made with eastward reorientation in a few Yellow-browed Warblers in Western Europe too movementecologyjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... @pauldufour80.bsky.social #Ornithology

🚨 Master’s project! Curious how birds find their way? 🧭🐦 Analyze decades of ringing data to study abnormal migratory routes and uncover what these deviations can reveal about the mechanisms guiding birds on their journeys. Drop me an email for details! #ornithology www.vogelwarte.ch/de/wir/mitar...

Just published: Conservation genomics of two endangered buntings reveal genetic diversity before and after severe population declines. doi.org/10.1186/s129... Despite severe population declines, both species retained high genetic diversity but experienced increased inbreeding. #ornithology #birds

Been great fun visiting @flamboroughbird.bsky.social last week, and am super excited to be back in a few days! Awesome start to the project with 4 birds sampled in the last 4 days, we're hoping to use #genomic data derived from feather samples to see where these enigmatic birds come from ☺️

Grey-Cheeked Thrush trapped and ringed @lundybirds.bsky.social this morning. @birdguides.bsky.social @rarebirder.bsky.social

1. Yellow-browed Warbler tagged in 2025! 🤩 On September 24, @annikapeter.bsky.social tagged the first Yellow-browed warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus) on Helgoland in 2025 to study its migratory behaviour. Stay tuned for fascinating bird tracks! #Motus #Tracking #Birdmigration

Nice 🧵

A second record of Common Grackle from the Netherlands - other WP recs from Denmark and Spain. First NL record is the only one accepted as a Category A equivalent, but almost certainly ship-assisted (if not an escape) 1/4 🪶 www.dutchbirdalerts.nl/alerts/19691...

Are animals randomly distributed in the air, or is there a structure to where and when we find them? In our new paper we outline factors that shape habitat use in the air, from abiotic structure to biotic interactions. A lot of fun discussions behind this one! 🦅🦋🦇🌬 www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

I definitely wasn’t early to the Listers party, but I’m glad I made it. Can recommend to all birder adjacent and bird curious folks 🪶 m.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-w...

Just back from a pelagic trip out to the Whittard Canyon area on the continental shelf edge with @scillypelagics.bsky.social @scottinscilly.bsky.social @nomadbirder.bsky.social Madeiran Storm Petrel reclassified from MEGA!!! to scarce summer visitor in one evening with 84 counted last night! 😂

Swainson's Thrush at Cuithir this morning, a well deserved find by Stuart Beeby, incredibly the 4th Barra record, making it our second most frequent North American vagrant passerine. #BirdingScotland #RareBirdsUK

🚨 PhD alert 🚨 We are looking for a highly motivated student to use 🧬 genomics 🧬 and 🛰️ bio-logging 🛰️ approaches to disentangle cultural and genetic contributions to seabird migration 🐣 Think this is you, or someone you know? Then come to our Q&A session at on 29/09 and check out the ad below!

🐜 Une nouvelle étude révèle un phénomène inédit dans le règne animal : certaines reines donnent naissance à des mâles d’une autre espèce. Ce mécanisme appelé « xénoparité » permet à leurs colonies de survivre. Explications avec des GIF de fourmis ⬇️

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

Excited to share our new paper on flight morphology and migration in North American wood warblers. Surprisingly, ground-dwelling warblers may be better adapted for migration than aerial ones!!! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🐦🔬 Recruiting PhD students! 🌎🧬 I’m looking for 1–2 PhD students to join our team starting Fall 2026 at the Sam Noble Museum & University of Oklahoma. Our research: 🐦 birds • 🌍 biogeography • 🌴 Neotropics • 🧬 population genomics • 🌱 speciation 👉 Learn more: www.moncriefflab.org Please share!

Under #climate change, extreme weather events are liable to become more frequent and intense. @simonbaeckens.bsky.social & Colin Donihue review the evidence for impacts on #evolution such events can have and how we can study them in the future. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Like woodpeckers? Or population genomics? Or three-species hybridization? Or selective sweeps? Then this is for you! The typeset version of "Evidence for ancient selective sweeps followed by differentiation among three species of Sphyrapicus sapsuckers" is published today: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Migratory birds aren’t equally efficient at all speeds. A new Lund University study shows thrush nightingales fly most efficiently at 7–8 m/s – the speed they actually use on migration. @pablomaciastorres.bsky.social & Prof. Anders Hedenström, Animal Flight Lab. www.biology.lu.se/article/not-...

What a cool paper!

I (only) recently started using notebooklm.google If you don't know it, it really is an amazing tool (with some problems, obviously). The most important thing is that it allows me to read (well, hear) a few more papers, missing a little less of what's new in science. 🧪 (some thoughts below)

New #ornithology paper out in Journal of Biogeography: Phylogenomics Supports Island Contribution to Metapopulation Dynamics in a Predominantly Continental Bird Species doi.org/10.1111/jbi.... Using the world´s smallest rail as study species 😍 Many thanks to Daisuke Aoki and all collaborators!

🦩🦩🦩 First paper from my last postdoc at @tourduvalat.bsky.social, co-first authored with Hugo Cayuela, is now published in @pnas.org. Thanks to a wonderful dataset on the Greater Flamingo in southern France, we investigated the relationship between migratory behaviour and ageing. 🦩🦩🦩