The biggest conservation win ever for the endangered Palm Cockatoo! On the back of 18 years of my research on this difficult species, People for Wildlife and Indigenous rangers and I were able to make an install an artificial hollow that was immediately used! 💥 capeyorkweekly.com.au/artificial-h...

For decades biologists assumed ravens follow wolves to their kills. Our paper @science.org shows something different: ravens rarely follow wolves far. Instead they remember areas where wolf kills are common and return to them—sometimes from >150 km away. doi.org/10.1126/science.adz9467 📷Dan Stahler

🦜🏔️ How did vibrant Amazonian parrot feathers end up in a desert tomb on the Pacific coast of Peru 1,000 years ago? Our new paper on @natcomms.nature.com reveals they didn't just trade feathers, pre-Inca societies transported live macaws and parrots across the Andes!👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social and ecological factors associated with innovation in urban sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) #SmartBird #ProblemSolving #UrbanEnvironments doi.org/10.1093/behe...

There is order in pandemonium 😜 1- We show that wild SC-cockies have sex & age structured hierarchies, stable for at least 3 years 🏆 2- We provide guidance on how to choose the right threshold for your data when using rElo.

New paper alert! 🦜 We gave wild cockatoos puzzle boxes across Canberra’s urban gradient. The finding? Urban birds approach faster, but are not better solvers. Our results suggest that urbanization shapes neophobia independently from cognitive performance. Read it here: doi.org/10.1093/behe...

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

Ominous bird valentines.

📘 New book out soon ! I’m excited to share that 𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞-𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐨𝐯 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬: 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐑 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐄 is being published by Chapman & Hall / CRC Press Hope it’s useful to students, researchers, and practitioners #StatisticalEcology #NIMBLE

A few days short of my 8(!!) year anniversary in the Aplin lab, it‘s time to say goodbye to a truly amazing lab & start a new, exciting, chapter! R: 1st day of PhD fieldwork &1st time having a bird land on me (2018). L: soaked through (but happy!) postdoc with the same bird, Tobruk (103).

🎉 📣Join today at 1pm GMT to learn about ESLR and get involved!

We are hiring – postdoc position exploring how kinship shapes social ageing in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social and Prof Rufus Johnstone (Cambridge) starts 1st April 2026 and ends 31st March 2029. Apps close 2nd Feb. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPZ788/p...

🎓 Got a skill to share? Pass on your wisdom by hosting a friendly session with the ESLR community online! A great chance to test-run a workshop or rehearse teaching material in a supportive setting. Writing, analysis, academic life… if it's helped you, we'd love to hear it ✨ tinyurl.com/57v7ftd3

In 2025 we marked 30 years of the Kākāpō Recovery Programme. Kākāpō ranger and artist Sarah Little (www.instagram.com/sarahmaylittle) tells the story. Part 1 of 2: the history. #kakapo #conservation #parrots #birds

🚨Roll up, roll up, fully-funded #PhD deadlines approaching... 6th Jan: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6 8th Jan: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp Social monitoring & manipulation #meerkats #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork #long-termdata @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social @ljnbrent.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

Save the date! 🗓️ On the 14th of Jan 2026, we will hold our first online meeting after a prolonged hiatus 💻🌍. This will be a friendly, informal gathering for members to meet and learn about ESLR activities for 2026 including our upcoming skill sharing sessions. 🛠️💡 More information will follow soon!

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students. I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

#BiologyLetters in @smithsonianmag | Monk parakeets ‘test the waters’ when forming new relationships: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

New paper out today w @dalmaijer.bsky.social @barbaraklump.bsky.social and @lucymaplin.bsky.social as part of the Phil Trans special issue doi.org/10.1098/rstb.... Over 2 years, we studied a population of cockatoos thought to be the source of the innovation of bin-opening.

Looking for a PhD? 🦜 Interested in ornithology, animal behaviour, bioacoustics? I am advertising a PhD on vocal communication in ring-necked parakeets tinyurl.com/44a3hcnz Eligible candidates are encouraged to apply for University of Salford Widening Participation Scholarships tinyurl.com/4wtzzh3z

Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Juvenile songbirds acquire key life skills primarily from siblings and non-parent adults, with sibling influence surpassing that of parents in species with limited parental care. doi.org/g9578b

🦅PhD position 🦅 in my new group at @fbm-unil.bsky.social in Switzerland, studying how the social and resource landscapes shape the learning process for soaring flight. Deadline: Oct 30. Pls repost! career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Are you studying animal sociality? My (now published) first PhD chapter proposes a Bayesian + causal framework to infer the factors shaping the social relationships that animals form with one another. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Want to get the low-down on vulturine guineafowl societies? Here's a summary of our knowledge so far: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

That's the spot...! A trio of allopreening cockies engaging in some social bonding at our field-site, captured by @elliearose.bsky.social. If you'd like to learn more about when and why cockies allopreen, check out a recent paper by @julia-penndorf.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social paper out today in @royalsociety.org Biology Letters. We found adult jackdaws can learn to tolerate usually bullied or ignored juveniles when they provided information about a new foraging resource. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Hi Bluesky! 👋 We're the account for the Clever Cockie Project, researching culture and cognition in urban sulphur-crested cockatoos. We'll post updates from the field, along with our recent results and publications. You can find more, including our current team, here: www.clevercockies.com/the-team

Two paper just out from the #clevercockieproject! @julia-penndorf.bsky.social reveals how cockies play politics when deciding who to aggress: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.... & @barbaraklump.bsky.social describes a new 'drinking innovation': royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

📣 preprint klaxon: New study with @dalmaijer.bsky.social @barbaraklump.bsky.social @lucymaplin.bsky.social where we take a closer look at the innovation arms race between cockatoos and residents of Sydney doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🏰 PhD position on computational modelling | collective dynamics | cultural evolution 🏰 Get in touch with any questions you might have and join me in beautiful Marburg! stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/c... (Deutsch) stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/3... (English)

Come do a PhD with Sinead English @englishse.bsky.social , Dan Padfield @padpadpadpad.bsky.social and me on Gulls! GPS- and Bluetooth-tracking! Microbiomes & AMR acquisition & transmission! Human-wildlife conflict & mitigation! should be fun :-)

🐦📢🧪 very pleased to share our freshly published cultural diffusion experiment w/ Gustavo Alarcón-Nieto @lucymaplin.bsky.social @ PLOS Biology that explored decision-making of immigrant great tits after moving into a new social group: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

If anyone is looking for a PhD or postdoc project validating the ability of camera traps to estimate known population densities and demographies of capuchins, compare body sizes, and identify individuals with CNNs (with existing training data) email or message me.

📖Published📖 Our new Research Article introduces animal tracking using Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) beacons. BLE beacons are a low cost, low-energy solution for studying organisms (e.g. birds, mammals and reptiles) living and moving in urban landscapes 🐾 🌎 🧪 https://buff.ly/4facxL6