Come & work with us - fully funded 4 year PhD on Social Ageing: Social environment effects on senescence, using an epigenetic clock www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor... @rug.nl @david-s-richardson.bsky.social @keesvanoers.bsky.social @seychelleswarbler.bsky.social photo: @charlisdavies.bsky.social

When we hypothesised female terns to have lower mercury levels than males due to egg laying, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social et al designed an elegant experiment to prove the effectiveness of this pathway. That proof just got published & the open access paper can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

🚨 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!

As autumn begins & seabird season ends for another year, we've been reminiscing about the summer! We'd love to share images of #seabird fieldwork throughout September to celebrate our diverse seabird species ✨🪶 If you have one you'd like to share pls include a description & use #SeabirdSeptember! 🐦

And to add some more beauty to the internet: here's a close-up of Dr Schnelle, with her gorgeous hat crafted skillfully by various members of the @ifv-whv.bsky.social, fired on by @robertrollins1892.bsky.social. 🥰

Look at that! @genmig.bsky.social, @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social and I fledged this supercool chick at the @ifv-whv.bsky.social on Wednesday. Let us proudly present to you: Dr Anna Schnelle.

Spread the word: we’re #hiring! We offer two short-term #fellowships for master’s degree holders and PhD candidates for 6-12 months to excellent researchers, who are interested in doing research within one dedicated project of our SFB/CRC 1372. Find more information on www.sfb1372.de/jobs

Early career researcher who'd love a mentor? Or mid-career (onwards) looking to give back AS a mentor? Sign up below for the new round of Guillemates 🥰🐧 Mentees👉 forms.gle/cdktNREkhUDb... Mentors👉 forms.gle/uwA9X9giUPnA... Such a great learning (or supporting!) opportunity 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 Pls share! #seabirds

🌍 Meet CREAF: a bold effort to protect #Wetlands, #MigratoryBirds & communities across 11 African countries. Powered by local action & funded by‪ @iki-germany.bsky.social, we’re building climate resilience along the East Atlantic Flyway: flyway.waddensea-worldheritage.org/climate-resi...

Out now in Environmental Research – Anna’s new paper in which she assesses the levels of 118 contaminants in unhatched eggs and dead chicks found in the last and endangered population of gull-billed terns in Central Europe, breeding at Neufelderkoog: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

📢Job alert! We’re looking for the next Seabird Monitoring Programme Organiser to join the BTO Surveys Team!🔭📈 ℹ️ For more information and to apply: www.bto.org/jobs 🗓️ Deadline for applications: 8th Sept 2025. #seabirds #citizenscience @btobirds.bsky.social, @jncc.bsky.social, @rspb.bsky.social

Ooooh, one of our beautiful terns made it to the cover of the issue of Ethology that contains Melina's study on individual behavioral responses to novel stimuli: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hmmm, delicious! 😋🦗 #gullbilledtern #lachstern

Are you interested in the effects of mercury contamination on seabirds? Check out the latest @commonternproject.bsky.social paper pubblished in Environmental Research!👇 "Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival". doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

On June 21st I saw the first Gull-billed Terns back in Groningen. Extremely early, a sign that their nest has failed. Rats are the main cause of the failure. The return of the Gull-billed Terns is also not good news for Great Green Bush-crickets. They are no longer sure of their lives...

We can do great things when we are working together... 🦭🐋🦈🐻‍❄️🐟🐧🦢*🐢* Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

And here it is - Justine's last thesis chapter got accepted too and can now be read as an open access paper in Environmental Research: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Our neighbours at the Banter See are no fan of the terns. Luckily the terns don't give a shit. Oh, or maybe sometimes they do. :-)

The tumble.. 😅

Cute findings for a hot Wednesday morning.

The Local Organizing Commitee welcomes behavioral ecologists from across the world and of all career stages to enjoy a five-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities in Turin (Italy), 20-24 July 2026.

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

22 papers across two issues document the impact of #AvianInfluenza and assess effectiveness of management responses. They show the unprecedented scale of the outbreak, decimating populations across Europe, Africa, North and South America to the South Atlantic. 📚 bit.ly/bird-study-h... #Ornithology

Arrival was earlier, but it does not look like we are going to end up with many more birds this year than last. I guess the 'silent reservoir' was used up, such that we now wait for new recruits from last year's cohort to start making up for the severe losses HPAI induced in 2022 and 2023.

Three weeks ago, the little one on the picture on the left was found cold and almost dead. But yesterday, it was the first chick from 'island A' to get its transponder. Happy fledging, little survivor. May you recruit to produce many little survivors yourself. ❤️

Job alert: We are looking for an enthusiastic and adaptable marine ornithologist to join the JNCC Marine Species Team. More info here: www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...

134 grams of loveliness. ❤️

🗓️ SAVE THE DATE! Announcing our 2027 spring conference #BOU2027 | 6 - 8 April 2027 | Nottingham, UK & Zoom & Bluesky Avian disease ecology: combining avian ecology and OneHealth to understand and mitigate disease bou.org.uk/event/avi...#BOU2027 #ornithology 🪶

The facial expression of a parent with teenagers. I can relate. 😂

Massive outbreaks of HPAI in Senegal, Gambia in 2023, none of which captured in WAHIS. >10,000 dead African Crested Terns, >400 Caspian Terns, >2000 Grey-headed Gulls, >200 Sandwich Tern 👉 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Weekend loveliness: retrapping a gull-billed tern carrying a GPS and getting to know a few of the newest colony members.

The tracking of the gull-billed terns of @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social is going really well and we're seeing lots of interesting variation in space use. Here's two examples of tracks collected across the last 8 days:

68 nests with chicks now. ❤️

Here’s a video of a fun pilot study on tern personality aspects, in which Melina tested how the birds respond to a novel object placed at their nest. Linea from nest 431 did not care much about an orange cone making an appearance. :-)

ETHOLOGY: How do breeding common terns react to novelty? 🐦🪺🔺😲 Castano et al. find that females take consistently longer than males to return to the nest after encountering a novel object—and that responses vary by reproductive stage but not age. #AnimalBehavior #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1111/eth....

Fresh siblings and lots of chick ringing during today’s check of the colony. Even the rain held off to let us do our job. 🐣

Live from the field: the first 4 chicks of 2025 have hatched. ❤️ #babyboom

Überragender Erfolg für die Universität Oldenburg: Im Exzellenzwettbewerb war sie mit den drei Exzellenzclustern Hearing4all, Ocean Floor und NaviSense erfolgreich. In den Vorhaben geht es um Hörforschung, Meeresforschung und Tiernavigation... weiterlesen

Grateful & excited that more tern work will be funded through one of the 70 #ClustersOfExcellence granted by the @dfg.de today. From 01/01/2026, ‘Navisense’ will work to provide mechanistic understanding of animal naviation, and support conservation efforts. You can follow along here: navisense.org

The #ClustersOfExcellence have been selected: today, the Excellence Commission approved 70 projects for funding. 45 clusters will continue and 25 will be newly established. Funding starts on 1 Jan 2026 for 7 years, with €539 million per year. The full list: www.dfg.de/resource/blo... 1/3

The Banter See season in numbers so far: we have registered 372 birds, 189 nests have been initiated, 42 blood samples have been collected and 28 birds have been caught to attach or remove a geolocator. Next up: chick ringing. Hatching should start any day now. ❤️

From one field site to the next. Back at the Banter See, Kator & Anea from nest 11 on island C have turned into the managers of the entire island, bloodsampling any scientist that dares to come close. :-)

Last weekend was exciting! Together with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social,‬ and thanks to the amazing teams at Druid & Interrex, we deployed the first gull-billed tern with a GPS. It returned to the nest after a quick preening session and for the last 3 days has shared its foraging sites with us.

Let us introduce you to the Banter See common tern team 2025. :-)

Live from the field: 328 registered birds and 121 nests today. #fieldwork #seabirds

Götz & Nathalie have started catching today. Kamala was 3rd to safely return her #geolocator. Nathalie will be analyzing the track soon, adding Kamala to a subset of 140 other birds for which she has collected data on the #migratorybehaviour as part of her postdoc funded by @sfb1372.bsky.social.

Good morning from the Banter See! Arrival is looking comparatively good this year. 321 registered birds so far (vs. 236 on the same day last year), and counting. #phenology #seabirds

In other exciting news, the gull-billed terns in Neufelderkoog have started breeding too: gelochelidon.de/blog/laying-...

Out now, the East Atlantic Flyway Assessment 2023, raising concern about the status of migratory waterbird populations along the East Atlantic Flyway, given that 33% are declining: flyway.waddensea-worldheritage.org/resources/ea...

Because of the massive increase in #IngestedPlastic this year (number, mass and size of particles) were finding intact items inside our baby #seabirds. This means we’re able to get information on brands…including THIS! ⬇️ #SoyFish #PollutionIsADesignChoice #shearwaters @seabirdsentinel.bsky.social