A perfect sunny day to set up audio recorders at Yarner Woods with @ajhdoyle.bsky.social & @piedflynet.bsky.social. The recorders will act as a remote nest box monitoring tool to estimate breeding behaviour, phenology & success of the Pied Flycatchers. Find out more: www.durham.ac.uk/staff/andrew...

Pied Flycatcher eggs in the North York Moors earlier this week. Based on our audio recordings, we estimate first arrival dates at the nest boxes were April 9th (6 Eggs) and April 11th (5 Eggs). Photos taken on May 7th.

Pied Flycatchers have started nest building in the North York Moors. So far we have two recorders on boxes where nest building is underway, and two recorders at boxes on neighbouring trees to the pied fly nests. Found time to ring Dipper pulli for the first time as well.

First Pied Flycatcher of the season spotted today! It checked out a nest box (one we haven’t got a recorder on - typical) but got chased off by a Blue Tit. He then moved to an area with good recorder coverage - time to dive into the audio and track down that first detection!

What better way to follow up #BOU2025 than a day in the field? Today was the first of many SD card collections. Not expecting the Pied Flys yet, but we’re ready to detect their arrival! We'll use Kaleidoscope Pro to process the data. Thanks to @wildlifeacoustics.bsky.social for the software grant!

Time to listen in! This year, I'll be tuning into Pied Flycatcher breeding behaviour with audio recorders. Testing their use for remote nest box monitoring. All going well, the data will link breeding behaviour to arrival date, refining a key migration model parameter. Excited to see what we find!