Out now & open access in Avian Pathology - a collaborative paper showing how highly pathogenic avian influenza (clade 2.3.4.4b euBB) was introduced, and led to high mortality, in breeding colonies of black-headed gulls and common terns in Germany in 2023: doi.org/10.1080/0307...

we won! 🏆 kids4kids was awarded the open-science-prize from UG (Unversitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg) tinyurl.com/356mmf6m @ifv-whv.bsky.social we’re incredibly happy and grateful for this recognition. It really means a lot to see our passion project celebrated

Talking about the chicks... they are doing amazing! There is plenty of food around, so they are growing up fast, with the first ones having fledged this week and many more getting ready to follow that example.

Chick sampling was closely supervised by Ariella, this weekend. Ariella hatched in 2022, prospected in 2024, then started breeding with Vedran in 2025. Last year they fledged 1 chick, and this year things are looking good for fledging 2. 🥰

After last year’s successful pilot study, GPS-tracking @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social's birds, we’re back at it this year. The lovely bird @harrykuipers.bsky.social photographed is L39, a 5-yr old female, breeding with 4-yr old R75 on nest 8. She laid two eggs that both hatched successfully.

A few days after successfully defending my PhD, another chapter of my thesis is out in Environmental Toxicology!🥳 Here, we show that bird embryos actively mobilize Hg from eggshells, key for better understanding Hg impact on wildlife. More information can be found here👇 doi.org/10.1002/tox....

Hosted 25 kids at the museum this morning. 10 interviews are in the pocket, and the next event is planned too. One of the kids drew me this card as a thank-you. Mission accomplished. :-)

Very proud of you @matteobeccardi.bsky.social 👇😃🎉

Huge congratulations to @matteobeccardi.bsky.social on successfully defending his PhD thesis "Intrinsic and extrinsic factors shaping individual quality in birds"!!!🐦🥚🐣🤔🎓 🎉 Cheers to the next chapter!!!🍾🍾🍾

First opportunity to present my PhD results at #SIBM2026. A rewarding experience filled with insightful discussions, valuable feedback, and new ideas to bring back to my research.🦈🌊

The 2-year-olds have started to arrive en masse and, with 83, now make up 18% of the registered birds at the colony. At 470 of those, we are exactly 70 above the number we had this time last year. Food is looking good too, and the chicks are growing nicely. ❤️

Bugging is underway, and we are missing @matteobeccardi.bsky.social who spent two seasons supplementing the team to collect data on sex- and age-specific mitochondrial functioning in the terns. His paper on this just came out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Excited to share our new paper out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! Here, we investigated how sex and age shape mitochondrial function under natural conditions in a long-lived seabird, the Common tern. Read the paper here for more information👇 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

“Counting cases, conserving species: addressing highly pathogenic avian influenza in wildlife”. Out now, and open access, in Biological Reviews: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

The observation huts and rat protection are up. It's beginning to look a lot like the breeding season of 2026. Thanks to yet another dreamteam this season!❤️

🔈Really happy to see this one ⬇️ out! 🎉 Great to see this compilation of studies finally published. Thanks to all the authors, reviewers and the team @avianbiology.bsky.social who made this possible! Editorial: nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #Ornithology #Physiology #Migration

✨ Editorial: a summary and synopsis of the studies included in the special issue on migration physiology written by the editorial team @pablosalmon.bsky.social @barbarahelm.bsky.social #TiiaKärkkäinen ➡️ vist.ly/4ucex #ornithology #birds #migration #physiology

Thanks for featuring our work! Across 6 Italian cities (220 point counts; breeding + winter), we find that established parakeets tend to expand the functional trait space of urban bird communities, consistent with filling underused niche space.

Proud to present: Suitcase Science, a new outreach format containing 6 assignments to take on a journey to schools in the region, to teach kids about terns, how to study them, their fascinating behaviour and some of the things that threaten them. Wanna book us? Drop me a line. :-)

⚠️Paper out ⚠️ Here, we tested if extra feeding lesser kestrel nestlings during development (and under a heatwave) can help them deal with extreme heat. Spoiler: they really struggle. Extra food helps them grow when it’s just hot, but not under a heatwave. See 👇 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

If you're at #BES2025 and interested in owls and how noise & light pollution affect their foraging behaviour, come to check out my owl poster 🦉💡🚗 #owls #ecology #ornithology #RaptorResearch

👀Behind the Paper!👀 🪺Author Valentina Alaasam discusses single parenting in the avian world, enjoying all the outdoors has to offer, and the importance of not fearing failure🐦 Read it here👇 buff.ly/EjX8SQO 🧪🌍

📰Published📰When one parent leaves: The consequences of mate desertion on offspring survival and physiology🪺 buff.ly/dURNn4V 🧪🌍

New paper out in @funecology.bsky.social: Parental conflict over care is bad for offspring growth! 🐤🐣 Check out our article: Mate desertion affects offspring survival, development and physiology in a songbird with multiple parental strategies. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Happy to share our latest publication out now in @funecology.bsky.social. 🥳 Here, we studied the effects of mate desertion on offspring survival, development and physiology in one of the most interesting bird species, the Rock sparrow! Check out the paper for more info👇 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

🎤 We’re excited to introduce another plenary speaker for the 5th EOU Fledglings Meeting in Gdańsk (27–29 March 2026)! 🌿 Miriam Liedvogel (@genmig.bsky.social) will share her work on blackcap migration - a fascinating look into one of Europe’s most dynamic songbird species. #EOU26 #Ornithology

A great seminar from @mmoiron.bsky.social walking us through how to disentangle the causes of similarity among partners & the estimation & implications of indirect effects in natural populations

This week's EGI seminar is being given by Dr Maria Moiron @mmoiron.bsky.social of the University of Bielefeld at 3.30pm on Friday 21 Nov in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk. See below for online joining details - all welcome!

Are you interested in PFAS and OCPs contamination in birds? In our latest publication, we studied the levels of these contaminants in Great tit eggs from areas with different anthropogenic pressures. Read the paper here for more details👇 doi.org/10.1007/s113...

There’s one month left to apply for the PhD position on interactions between contaminants and parasites in common terns, co-supervised by @alicecarravieri.bsky.social, Bernd Sures from @unidue.bsky.social and myself. You can do so here: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/380142

The date is set for the next EOU Fledglings Meeting 🐥 in Gdansk, Poland! Share the news with your peers! 🦆

Premio Matteo Griggio per tesi di dottorato di ambito ornitologico. www.istitutoveneto.it/premio-matte... Scadenza: 20 febbraio 2026 Per concorrere al Premio, bisogna aver conseguito un dottorato presso un'università italiana tra il 1° gennaio 2023 e il 31 dicembre 2025.

Out @animalecology.bsky.social today - a paper with David Ewing in which we explore the #HPAI outbreak in the terns. We find bird-to-bird transmission to be the main driver of infection and estimate the probability of mortality to drop from 0.26 to 0.14 from 2022 to 2023: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

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...

Out now in Environmental Pollution: 'Experimental evidence for maternal offloading of mercury pollution via reproduction' By @matteobeccardi.bsky.social, @commonternproject.bsky.social, @pablosalmon.bsky.social, @icbm-uol.bsky.social & @oscarvedder.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2025.127121

I'm happy to share with you our new paper out now in Environmental Pollution! Here, we experimentally studied the maternal offloading of mercury pollution via reproduction in an avian model species. Read the paper here for more details👇 doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

#Birds and #ClimateChange ⚠️ spoiler alert ⚠️ Check out my #EOU2025 #poster in advance about #AlpineSwifts and Extreme Temperatures... Interested? Come chat at the poster session Wednesday afternoon! link: osf.io/cfe46 @eounion.bsky.social #ornithology

So much cool avian vagrancy research presented and discussed at our #EOU2025 symposium today. Thanks to everyone who presented and attended @pauldufour80.bsky.social @joewynnbirds.bsky.social #Ornithology

#EOU2025 delegates birding at the beautiful South Stack nature reserve

#EOU2025 at the start with a plenary by Tim Birkhead! Fascinating talk about long term studies of seabirds in Wales!

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...

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/...

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...

New publication by @commonternproject.bsky.social with @coralinebcht.bsky.social, @mmoiron.bsky.social, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social & @icbm-uol.bsky.social: 'Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival'. doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

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...

Cute findings for a hot Wednesday morning.

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

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. ❤️

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