Nice YouTube-summary of the 2025 study on bird nests by @jezierskimt.bsky.social, @willjsmith.bsky.social and their colleagues. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzN6... Here is the link to the original paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... #ornithology

I'm proud to be an associate editor for this journal: please send us your fun bird science! 🤓🐣

How nice is it when you spot other species while doing fieldwork?

New issue of #BirdStudy today! www.tandfonline.com/toc/tbis20/7... Moroccan Little Terns Scottish Water Rails (OpenAccess) Nightjars & wind-damaged forests Urban Coots & disturbance Trail cameras for Corncrakes (OpenAccess) Age effects on bird monitoring Moorland Curlews in Nth England #ornithology

A cool chicken paper 🐓. Such work benefits from having healthy comparator populations of domesticated species' wild forms (in this case, Red Junglefowl). We wrote about this: doi.org/10.1093/orni.... It's part of why @jezierskimt.bsky.social and I visit Uist regularly, to study the wild pigeons.

Why pigeons deserve more respect.

New paper in @journal-evo.bsky.social and I'll be defending my thesis in a few hours! Relaxed selection diminishes social memory and expression of host defenses against cuckoos academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

It was very nice to be asked by @theconversation.com to write about this fascinating new research. Pigeons in Bronze Age Cyprus! Big congrats to the authors. Excited to see what more we can learn about the early stages of the human-pigeon relationship… doi.org/10.64628/AB....

Separately, whilst on St Kilda last month working on these endemic Wrens, a Redpoll which flew into our nets already had an ID ring. Turns out it was ringed in September 2025 as a first-year bird, on Sula in Norway. That's 1135km away from St Kilda! @jezierskimt.bsky.social @stkildawhs.bsky.social

Grateful to any visitors this season that are able to photograph any of @jezierskimt.bsky.social 's colour-ringed birds in the Village. If you're able to read a darvic ring, please report the alphanumeric code, time and location to NTS staff for contribution to Michal's research 🙏

St Kilda Wrens weigh ~14g (large birds >16g!). 7-11g is usual for mainland GB/continental Wrens. So this subspecies can weigh the same as some Great Tits or Blackcaps. GINORMOUS! Congrats @jezierskimt.bsky.social on the paper! #ornithology doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Our (Jenny Dunn, Carolina Chagas, @willjsmith.bsky.social) paper on the evolution of island Wrens is finally out @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We describe the evolution of island gigantism in the St Kilda and Shetland subspecies. academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

Uist's wild Rock Doves seem to be having a solid breeding season so far, with lots of nests (which is good, since they had quite a tough winter). Also nice to see @jezierskimt.bsky.social give a talk on his island Wren research.

NEW Friend or foul? Analysis of pigeon bones from Bronze Age Cyprus sheds light on their ancient relationship with humans for the first time, suggesting they were domesticated centuries earlier than previously attested. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

New in #BirdStudy Using trail cameras to monitor Corncrakes: Use of passive infrared-triggered trail cameras to study timing of breeding and habitat use of Corncrakes Crex crex in Scotland doi.org/10.1080/0006... #ornithology @rspbscience.bsky.social @rspbscotland.bsky.social

Do you know of an inland or coastal Common Gull colony? Any abundance or productivity data on this under-monitored gull would be incredibly valuable for the @smp-seabirds.bsky.social #seabirds #ornithology #ScottishBirds

How do cuckoo mothers choose their optimal individual host? 🪺🪶 Find out about Teresa Abaurrea’s work on our latest blog post! www.informedbirds.com/blog/2026/5/...

Back from two weeks of field work in the Outer Hebrides. Studying stickleback by trapping, wading, snorkeling, drones, and my first field experience of using @bento.bio lab. Normally we guess what the mitochondrial lineage of the crosses we're making but this year we got to know in the field!

Nice that this has come out as we are in Uist, working with wild Rock Doves. It's great to get to know individuals, following them through their lives out in the meadows, ruins, and caves. If you live on, or visit, the islands, please keep an eye out for ringed doves to help us to learn more 🕊️

🥳 New paper in Ornithological Applications! @amornith.bsky.social Research and conservation priorities for domesticated birds’ wild counterparts academic.oup.com/condor/advan... A wonderful collaboration with @willjsmith.bsky.social, Philip Lavrestsky and Eben Gering. #ornithology

Domestic birds play major roles in our lives - so it's weird that we often lack basic knowledge of their wild forms, e.g. Red Junglefowl 🐓 / Rock Doves 🕊️! Eben Gering, @jenteo.bsky.social 🪿, Philip Lavretsky 🦆, and I discuss research + conservation priorities #Ornithology. doi.org/10.1093/orni...

This beautiful Song Thrush, caught today in Uist (whilst mist netting for @jezierskimt.bsky.social's island bird research), is of the 'hebridensis' subspecies. I can't see any differences cf. those I'm used to seeing in England...? Open to suggestions of features I've not noticed... 🤔 #Ornithology

EARLY VIEW in IBIS Feral Barbary dove phenotypes are lost following Eurasian Collared Dove invasions | onlinelibrary.wiley.... William J. Smith, Michał T. Jezierski, Hein van Grouw | #ornithology 🪶

Whilst on holiday in Fuerteventura, @jezierskimt.bsky.social and I noticed that many visiting birders report 'African Collared Doves'. But we saw only Eurasian birds, or probable hybrids. With Hein van Grouw, we did a mini study exploring this 🕊️: doi.org/10.1111/ibi.... #Ornithology @bou.org.uk

New story on the Avian Hybrids blog! Why don’t Common Cuckoo host races turn into separate species? avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2026/04/29/w... Based on the Science paper by Justin Merondun et al. | #ornithology

Six months in and the PhD in Pigeons is going well! Excited for what the next few years have in store. Very grateful that the @britornitholclub.bsky.social are both part-funding my research and helping to give it a platform. Find out what I’ve been up to in my latest blog post on their website!

NEW on #theBOUblog from Adam Gristwood and Kaspar Delhey Buzzards are losing their colour diversity: A Europe-wide citizen science study reveals that intermediate-plumaged birds now dominate bou.org.uk/blog-gris... Based on this IBIS paper doi.org/10.1111/ibi....#theBOUblog #ornithology 🪶

Swimming snakes wipe out endemic lizards from Mediterranean islets esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Tawny Owl breeding season is underway 🦉A pair was recorded today at one of our nestboxes, with chicks present and plenty of prey delivered to the nest. Monitoring during this period allows us to assess breeding success, chick growth and parental investment. @ecarlonminoia.bsky.social #Ecology #Owls

Also, I learnt there is such a thing as a 'worm lizard'. Such an odd animal 🪱🦎. Alongside beautiful Violet Carpenter Bees, glowworms, and hundreds of Perez's Frogs 🐸

Also, I learnt there is such a thing as a 'worm lizard'. Such an odd animal 🪱🦎. Alongside beautiful Violet Carpenter Bees, glowworms, and hundreds of Perez's Frogs 🐸

It's been great to help out on the @uniofnottingham.bsky.social undergraduate field course in Portugal. Lots of very cool birds caught, all contributing to a long-running study of their feather mites. This work has involved generations of Nottingham students, over decades! #Ornithology 🐦‍⬛

🎉 Congratulations to Will Smith for his highly-commended talk at #BOU2026 last week Will received an @nhbs.bsky.social#BOU2026voucher for his talk 'Use of anthropogenic landscapes in wild Rock Doves' #ornithology 🪶

Exciting to finally experience my personal equivalent of ‘is there a doctor on the plane?’ 🕊️

🧵 1/6 I'm at #BOU2026, presenting the results of our pilot study, GPS tracking Outer Hebridean 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Rock Doves. These birds represent the wild form of feral/domestic pigeons. This is published as a natural history 'insight', in @amornith.bsky.social's #Ornithology. doi.org/10.1093/orni...

Looking for MSc student(s) to be involved in some really cool germ-free experiments with house sparrows at @niooknaw.bsky.social @animalecol-nioo.bsky.social ! 🐣🦠Get in touch if you're interested and please share :) nioo.knaw.nl/en/vacancies...

There are now three species in the elite 'failed non-native' category of British birds. Ruddy Duck joins the illustrious Golden and Lady Amherst's Pheasants. Oh well, they tried their best... 😅

This Rock Dove was ringed in 2022, as a chick in a South Uist ruin. This morning, he turned up again, happy and well-fed (having somehow evaded notice across 2023, 2024, and 2025...). Without colour ringing, and help from local people reporting 'their' doves, we wouldn't know that he is still alive!

'It was unclear which team - if either - the pigeon supported' ⚽🐦 www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba....

First Rock Dove chicks of 2026, ringed in a derelict building in Uist @jezierskimt.bsky.social. They already have their white bum patches, but there's a while to go until they lose they (gross?) yellow fluff 🐣. Hopefully we will see them later this year, and find out where they've dispersed to...

🚨 Bulbul project update: we are now measuring specimens in several collections in Asia, Europe and USA. The data will be used in a family-wide analysis of intraspecific variation and are destined for the next global dataset release (AVONET 2.0). If you want to join the project, get in touch. 🪶🌐🌎🧪

Several male Goshawks breeding deep in Poland's Białowieża Forest 'routinely travelled up to 20 km to hunt feral pigeons in a town' with the authors concluding that 'urban environments shape the foraging behaviour of raptors even within primeval forests' #ornithology 🌍 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We've uploaded recordings of many of our seminars over the last few months to our You-tube channel, including from @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social, Kristen Ruegg, Daniel Field, @jon-slate.bsky.social, Paul Acker, @thelabandfield.bsky.social & @kokkonut.bsky.social - Enjoy! www.youtube.com/@EGIOxford

vs wild Rock Doves from our study population in Uist, Outer Hebrides - with 'blue' colour, 'bar' pattern, 'white' rump, and 'wildtype' eye. In most feral populations, only a minority of individuals have this combination of phenotypes. @jezierskimt.bsky.social @uniofnottingham.bsky.social

Love seeing feral pigeon variation...surely the most extensive of any wild bird! How amazing that they thrive in the concrete jungle. Here are some examples from across the UK, being studied for projects supported by @gensocuk.bsky.social @leverhulme.ac.uk @britishecologicalsociety.org

When your proposed source of birds comes from a different subspecies from Scandinavia, an area even cooler than the region where you want to release is and warming climate is likely to be the major extinction driver, genetics matters very bugger much actually.

📢 New 🐂🧬 paper! Population structure and domestication history of the Javan banteng www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... We discuss soft domestication, post-divergence gene flow, and contrasting genetic load, highlighting the dual conservation and agricultural relevance of the banteng.

New story on the Avian Hybrids blog! Why did Darwin compare pigeons and horses in the Origin of Species? avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2026/02/11/w... A special blog post to celebrate Darwin Day! 😉🧬 #ornithology

🚨 Now out: Award Issue, collecting all seven mini-reviews included in the 2025 Review Competition written by early career researchers. Highlighting emerging or less explored topics in avian biology ➡️ vist.ly/4pzxr Cover: pair of female Laysan albatrosses by Bertille Mohring #ornithology

Thrilled to share my very first paper with you, now out in @avianbiology.bsky.social! We investigated whether innate immune function varies during moult in adult & juvenile blackbirds (undergoing complete or partial moult).