Birding is for everyone! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ We had such an incredible time representing the Northwest Nevada Bird Alliance (formerly Lahontan Audubon Society) at Reno's Pride celebration this year! Huge shout out to our incredibly talented artist Lauren Estrada for creating our banner!

Do you like baby birds? Fun photos and stories about chickadees in my latest guest post at Wing Beat, the blog of the @amornith.bsky.social. This post accompanies our recent paper on postnatal dispersal and recruitment in mountain chickadees 🪶 americanornithology.org/hatch-early-...

An intense look from a very tiny northern pygmy-owl (Glaucidium gnoma). These owls weigh less than an American robin (~70g)! They are unusual among the owls because they are diurnal, meaning they hunt and are most active during the daytime. They prey mainly on small songbirds and mammals. #birds

Cinnamon teal (Spatula cyanoptera) males shoveling around in the mud at a wetland in Reno, NV. Many ducks' bills contain small comb-like structures called lamellae, allowing them to sift out mud or non-food particles and eat the larger invertebrate food items such as crustaceans or molluscs.

A bright male prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea) peaking out at the end of a branch in Chatham, NC. This species is one of only 2 warbler (Parulidae) species that nest in tree cavities (the other is Lucy's warbler). They primarily use holes excavated by downy woodpeckers! #birds #photography

Vermilion flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus) from the Las Vegas area. One of the most stunning and brightly-colored of the New World flycatchers (Tyrannidae), this species is found from the southern United States down to Argentina. In Vegas, the males stand out like a ruby in the desert landscape 🪶

Today 14 scientific societies in #ecology #evolution and #marineScience are publishing the results of a survey that finds negative impacts of federal policies on food security, flood mitigation, infectious disease preparedness, and wildlife conservation: 🧪👩‍🔬 www.firsthandaccounts.org/impacts/2025...

Have you ever been judged this harshly by a bird? Curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre) from southern Nevada. Rare to the area but a couple individuals are regularly spotted. The thrasher diversity in the North American Southwest is incredible. #birds

Nice blog by @laurenwhitenack.bsky.social about her recent paper on phenological flexibility in mountain chickadees. communities.springernature.com/posts/mounta...

The collared aracari (Pteroglossus torquatus) is a small toucan from Central and South America. Like other species of toucans, collared aracaris nest in tree cavities excavated by large woodpeckers. They eat fruit and insects, but are also known to eat the eggs and young from other birds’ nests. 🪶

We’re deeply disappointed negotiations for a global plastics treaty have ended without a final agreement. Over the past 3 years, the momentum has been undeniable. The world now understands, plastic is a full lifecycle problem that demands systemic solutions, & that its health impacts are profound.

🚨 DEI BANS - Sent to me by a colleague in Ohio at an orientation. As a graduate TA, it’s that time of year where I’m participating in and facilitating orientations for various university courses and initiatives. DEI hasn’t been banned at my institution yet but this NEEDS to be a wake up call. SPREAD

Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) from the Darién province of #panama. A unique species from the neotropical tanager family (Thraupidae), this bird has a sharp, decurved bill adapted for drinking nectar from flowers. #birds 🌺

Amazing: Birds may have a previously unrecognized ability to switch sexes. #ornithology

My 4th chapter was published today! Using 11 years of data on mountain chickadees, we showed that lay dates and clutch sizes were repeatable. We found variation among individual females in how much they shifted their lay dates year to year based on climate. 🪶 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I have a semi-leucistic Black-capped Chickadee that comes to my backyard fountain once or so a year, and I saw that one a few weeks ago, but this BCCH that appeared yesterday is the real deal for Leucism. #birding

Gorgeous male blue-chested hummingbird (Polyerata amabilis) from Gamboa, Panamá 🇵🇦 #birds #panamabirds

100 years of July temperature anomalies over land areas through 2025... Data from NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0: www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

I had the privilege of visiting the St Louis Zoo while in town for the #AOS25 conference and…THEY HAVE KING PENGUINS!!! They are so much SMALLER than I thought they were! What incredible creatures perfectly suited for their rapidly vanishing Antarctic habitat. Protect them now while we can! #birds

Tomorrow I’ll be speaking at #AOS2025 about individual plasticity in breeding timing in mountain chickadees using 12 years of data on individually marked birds! Find me in the Behavioral Responses to Climate session at 4:15PM. Come for the baby bird pictures, leave with knowledge about plasticity!

Mountain chickadees are resident birds found in montane conifer forests of Western North America. They are known for their exceptional spatial memory, which allows them to recover tens of thousands of seeds they have hidden throughout the forest in order to survive winter. ❄️🌲🏔️ #addBirder #birds

Hey everyone 👋 I’m new to Bluesky so here’s a bit about me! I am an ecology PhD student studying mountain chickadee breeding ecology 🐦 My current research is focused on how insect food availability affects bird reproductive success 🪲 In my free time, I love hiking and birding in the mountains 🏔️

New paper from the lab by @laurenwhitenack.bsky.social showing short-distance postnatal dispersal and that fledgling mass and fledging time are associated with recruitment success in mountain chickadees. academic.oup.com/auk/advance-...

Throwback Wednesday to this article from a recent New Yorker, highlighting the work of Biology's own Dr. Vladimir Pravosudov and his team! www.newyorker.com/science/elem...