Fellow #birders: has anyone used the Vortex Crossfire 8x42 #binoculars? Pros? Cons? How do they do in very cold weather? Im looking into affordable options for my Ornithology students; i’ve only used Diamondbacks @evornithology.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @saskajanet.bsky.social

A bonus #birdoftheday highlighting #naturespantry This male Golden-naped Chlorophonia was enjoying the berries in the Talamanca mountains of #CostaRica #birds #nature

Saskatoon was absolutely stunning last night 🤩🌌 #Saskatchewan #NightSky #AuroraBorealis #NorthernLights

The story on chemical communication in #poisonfrogs doesn't stop with the sexy fingers! "Histological and Gene Expression Analyses of the Arm and Finger Macroglands of Two Hyloxalus Frogs" is the new paper by the super talented Diana Abondano (Link in comments)! Out now in MolEcol. #cienciacriolla🇨🇴

I've been avoiding reading articles on the death of James Watson, co-discoverer of #DNA's structure. That is, until I saw that @statnews.com published one by Sharon Begley, a renowned science writer who passed in 2021. Yes, you read that right. www.statnews.com/2025/11/07/j... 🧪 (1/5)

Our newest Special Feature, "Implications of Changing Snowscapes for Animal Ecology", is now accepting proposals. It aims to highlight the importance of changing snow conditions in animal ecology. 🌨️ Read more and submit your proposal here:

We have TWO post-doctoral fellowships in the Biodiversity Centre at UBC next year! Am happy to chat if you might want to be hosted in my lab. biodiversity.ubc.ca/training-and... Deadline January 15th!

Fellow researchers and scholars in 🇨🇦 i strongly encourage you to submit a letter to this committee and consider signing the open letter. Rather than email the SRSR chair, you csn email the official committee email: [email protected]

Awesome teaching & experiential learning by @emilyschoy.bsky.social @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social 🤩

Canadian researchers should be aware the there is a motion before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research to force Tricouncils to hand over disaggregated peer review data on all applications: Applicant names, profiles, demographics Reviewers names, profiles, comments, and scores

"I’ve spent countless hours in the field & at my desk studying Wilson’s Snipe, but the work is far from finished... As North American shorebird populations continue to suffer, it’s critical to highlight species that can inform strategies & connect communities to these broader trends." #ornithology

Meanwhile in 🇨🇦: CRA wants to move fr human to #AI assistants. Based on auditor general’s report, human agents give correct info 17% of the time, while the CRA FAQ chatbot is correct 33% of the time. It’s ludicrous these crap results are being used to justify use of AI 🤦🏻‍♀️ www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Clark’s Grebe in Saskatoon 🇨🇦🪶 #BirdsSeenIn2025 #birds #birding #BirdTherapy

Rumour has it that one mammal specialist is still required -apply by Oct 31! 🦇

Museum collections are such an important resource! At @usaskartsci.bsky.social #Biology, we’re giving our #ornithology teaching collection some love & attention - inventory, organize, flag needs, filter for damage. Enhanced teaching coming soon! 🪶🧪🇨🇦

Prairie Icons #saskatchewan #prairie #beauty 🇨🇦

If you think that trudging 22 km through a peatland while watching for polar bears in order to collect science data is a good time then my undergraduate/graduate field course in August 2026 might be just for you! [email protected]

It’s really fun birding in museums & galleries, but it can also teach us a lot about ancient cultures. Cool work by Birkhead & Montgomerie in Ibis 🧪🪶 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Whooping Cranes are an endangered species. Only ~500 individuals remain. The only self-sustaining population (~329 birds, less than 250 of reproductive age) in the world breeds in Wood Buffalo NP & winters in Texas. This flock has been increasing, which is great! 1/2 🪶🇨🇦 #conservation #BirdTherapy

"Sacrificing vulnerable species to address economic uncertainty is short sighted and ignores the many benefits ecosystems provide. We need economic solutions that operate in harmony with nature, not in conflict,” says Tony Morris, Ontario Nature. 🔗: nationtalk.ca/story/piping...

It has been ten years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report and some feel the initiative is losing momentum.

Peter Pitseolak spent his life preserving the knowledge of the traditional ways of the Inuit through his writing, sketching and photography. Learning photography using borrowed cameras, he captured over 2,000 photos during a period of 20 years. This is his story. 🧵 1/8

At the age of 13, Jennifer Wood remembers being in a car driving up to the Portage La Prairie Indian Residential School with her suitcase and not comprehending what was going on until her father said he would see her at Christmas. She shares her story on the season premiere of Face to Face.

NSF today released instructions for the next round of applicants to its Graduate Research Fellowship Program. A key group—second-year Ph.D. students—is no longer eligible, and students who are still able to apply will face an unusually narrow timeframe. https://scim.ag/3KlQkQk

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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

With @romain-pigeault.bsky.social and Jérôme Moreau we offer a 6-months internship for a master student to test the effect of pesticides on passerine birds. Follow the link for more. @ecophycebc.bsky.social @univ-larochelle.fr @univpoitiers.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/posts/corali...

Our new paper is out!🐦 We replicated a paper by Gilles et al. 2024, and (surprise) replication studies are indeed very much needed!! To discover what info is encoded in the preen oil of Pied Flycatchers, and why are replication studies key for robust science, follow the link😁 doi.org/10.1111/jav....

Beautiful evening with Sandhill Cranes just south of Saskatoon 🪶🇨🇦 #Birds #Birding #BirdTherapy #sunset #nature #migration #Saskatchewan

#Paleontology 🪶

Northern Flicker…flicking. #bird #photography #nature #OMSystem

Alder Flycatcher in Saskatoon 🪶🇨🇦 #Birds #BirdTherapy #Birding #Saskatchewan #BirdsSeenIn2025

Please share!🙏 🚨 PhD Oportunity in Avian Behavioural Ecology in Spain The BirdBond Project (MNCN & IREC) studies how pair bonds form, change & affect reproduction/survival in the spotless starling 🐦

Our paper Genomic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles funestus was published in Science today! It features inversions, selection in action, museum specimens and putative new ecotypes. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

“The major question is, what does wildfire smoke mean for songbirds?” Dr. Catie Ivy is leading a new #USask research project that will examine the physiological effects of smoke intake on songbirds. #USaskResearch news.usask.ca/articles/res...

Lots of Swainson’s Thrush were moving through Saskatoon last week. What would you rename them? 🪶🇨🇦 #BirdNamesForBirds #Birds #Birding #BirdTherapy #Saskatchewan

Come and work with us! Three new academic posts (including Animal Behaviour) and superb facilities in the new Life & Mind Building

Shorebird species lose 1–10% of their total populations annually on the East Asian–Australasian Flyway in just 19 stopover sites in China, mainly by hunting and bird deterrence measures.Mortality rates are unsustainable for most species In @natecoevo.nature.com #waders www.nature.com/articles/s41...

HEY!

An Intergeneric Hybrid Between Historically Isolated Temperate and Tropical Jays Following Recent Range Expansion | doi.org/10.1002/ece3... | Ecology and Evolution | #ornithology 🪶

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

Super promising diagnostic tools for #endometriosis - so needed, so many affected by this disease (incl yours truly) & now this lab is at risk of losing funding due to you-know-whos horrible agenda. An excellent article well worth the read @science.org 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Apostlebirds are the extroverts of the bird world. Big bold personalities. They get their name from the mistaken belief that they always come in groups of 12.

New preprint out from the lab, including @rroyaute.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... In this we test what we refer to as the "standard model" of behavioral variation. This was inspired by recent work identifying intra-genotypic variation as a major contributor to "individuality". 1/

Another excellent day of birding in Saskatoon, this time with photos 🤩 Magnolia warbler, northern waterthrush, common yellowthroat, blackpoll warbler 🪶🇨🇦 ebird.org/checklist/S2... #birds #birding #BirdTherapy #BirdsSeenIn2025 #Saskatchewan #warblers #migration

Going through my photos from this morning, and when I saw this owlet with this expression, I immediately thought of Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That movie really messed with my head, I guess. 🪶

Just a fantastic day for #warblers in #Saskatoon, especially on @usask.ca campus and #meewasin trail 🤩 Awesome Fall Bird Count. 🪶🇨🇦 I hope you’re out @saskajanet.bsky.social! 11 km walked and biked from 7am-1:30pm ebird.org/checklist/S2... #birds #birding #BirdTherapy #migration

Super happy that our paper on offspring provisioning in communal breeding Smooth-billed Anis is out in @animbehsociety.bsky.social 🥳 Excellent undergrad work by Ashley Grew @queensuniv.bsky.social & Labiqah Iftikhar @uwaterloo.ca, who scored 100s of hours of video to find out that…1/3

Vesper Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow. What would you rename the LISP? 🪶🇨🇦 #BirdsOfSaskatchewan #BirdNamesForBirds #BirdTherapy #birds #birding #BirdsSeenIn2025

ok ok I've read the paper and as expected it is really freaking cool the queens are effectively hijacking androgenesis! so they store the sperm of the second species, and then clone that into their eggs so that the clonal males have a nuclear DNA from their og species but mito DNA from their mother