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).

Still time to apply for our spring field assistant roles on the Wytham tit project. Deadline this Sunday. Wonderful work in a wonderful setting (but I'm biased). egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/event/short-...

Norwich Market pigeons continue to be controversial 🐦 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wise words.

New story on the Avian Hybrids blog! What will happen to the hybrid zone between Hooded and Carrion Crow? avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2026/01/28/w... Based on a nice simulation study by Dirk Metzler and his colleagues | #ornithology

We are hiring at the Wytham Woods for the upcoming field season. 4 roles available. Please share with anyone who might be interested. #UKbirds #birdringing

New paper published! 🧬🐥🦠 Host WGS data can be repurposed to uncover endoparasite diversity at low cost, without destructive sampling, and outperform 18S metabarcoding. We test it in silvereyes. This work was led by PhD student Sarah Nichols @biology.ox.ac.uk www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The wild rock dove is little understood and largely overlooked by scientists.

Here is a new year read for pigeon lovers! 🕊️🧬 I've written a little piece @theconversation.com about our work in Scotland studying wild Rock Doves: theconversation.com/what-ive-lea...

Managed to sneak in one paper before the New Year with coauthors @flyliceresearch.bsky.social and Daniel Gustafsson (not on Bsky)! Introducing 2 new species of bird-infesting lice that, despite having no wings, appear to be adept at jumping across bird hosts and continents! doi.org/10.1111/mve....

377 #pigeons sampled later, I’m happy to share that the first paper from my PhD is published in One Health Journal It’s about monitoring #disease in the #urban #landscape and why a one number city-level #prevalence report can be misleading You can read the full PDF here: doi.org/10.1016/j.on...

Interesting new paper, reviewing past work on Rock Dove navigation: doi.org/10.4081/rio..... We published a small GPS-tagging project (using Scottish doves) earlier this year, as a bit of a pilot study (doi.org/10.1093/orni...). There is loads more to learn about these birds! 🕊️🔭

The first drone census of the St Kilda gannet colony is now published in Scottish Birds! We counted 59,205 AOS in 2023 - similar to previous years. The overall impact of #HPAI appears less than at some other colonies, with notable declines in flatter areas 🧮 #ornithology #seabirds #NTSseabirds

As I'm planning next years field season, I wonder if anyone on here would like to run a small island project on Skúvoy with me. I will be catching and samling great skuas, but there will be good opportunities to investigate other aspects of seabird island ecology 🌍🧪 #seabirds

New issue of #BirdStudy Little Terns nesting in Morocco Urban Sparrowhawk diet Urban Blackbird & Robin song shifts Goosander tracking Alpine Wheatears Supplementary feeding of Turtle Doves Red Kites and wind turbines Białowieża Robin paternity www.tandfonline.com/toc/tbis20/c... #ornithology #birds

Our new paper is out today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface (link below). All about eggshell roughness: "Scratching beyond the surface: examining macroecological patterns in avian eggshell texture". Congrats first author Marie Attard, and thank you @leverhulme.ac.uk for the funding.

Contributed to #theBOUblog to share my experiences at the #EOU2025 in Wales this summer!

Third and final Uist trip finished! That's 481 individual Rock Doves ringed/recaptured/resighted during 2025, providing great data to help us understand this population. It's been nice to also get the opportunity to update the community on our project progress. @jezierskimt.bsky.social

Big congratulations @rsmehlhausenfranks.bsky.social on passing your viva today with minor corrections. It’s been a pleasure supervising you. Thank you to the examiners @rjpheathcote.bsky.social and @markjfbrown.bsky.social! And thank you Paul Devlin and @evolecollab.bsky.social for your help too!