🆕 New paper: How young #ravens find their place in society Using #GPSbiologging, we show that juvenile ravens already display social integration before joining nonbreeder flocks. Space use depends on age, rearing background, and familiarity. @univie.ac.at Picture: M. Klymenko

I had the honour of working to bring @auersperga.bsky.social’s baby to life. It’s a VERY heavy baby - over 200 references (and yes I read them all) - but necessary to do justice to our new hypothesis of combinatory tool use origins 📝👶🛠️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Now online in Journal of #Ornithology Common Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula) is able to adjust the nest defense to perceived risk link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1/6 Emotional/affective contagion in bumblebees First evidence that emotions are contagious in insects too. Bumblebees that observed an optimistic bumblebee became optimistic themselves. This is the most basic form of empathy. (paper) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Natalie and I have resubmitted a revised manuscript about the behavioural responses of tropical wrens to simulated predators. Great revising @natingui.bsky.social! Fingers crossed for a positive outcome. Our 3D-printed Ferruginous Pygmy-Owls were made by @lincolnsavi.bsky.social.

1/5 Birds around the world use the same alarm call to warn of the presence of brood parasites. They studied 21 species from nine families that were separated by 50 million years of evolution. Perhaps the most interesting finding: the alarm call is learned. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neophobia compared in 1,439 birds of 136 species Specialised diets and migration are associated with greater fear of new objects. Surprisingly, witnessing such objects in groups is also associated with greater fear. (paper) journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... (blog) phys.org/news/2025-10...

So excited that our first major empirical @themanybirds.bsky.social paper is now out in @plosbiology.org! Leading this big team science project, with our excellent core leadership team, is a labour of love for me, delighted to see our hard work over the past 4 years has reached this milestone!

😍🦅 An absolutely fantastic project and the best collaboration. I am very happy that it was successful on such a scale. We are glad that we could contribute on behalf of our Czech team from @prfju.bsky.social 🪶 🙏 #BirdCognition @ckecz.bsky.social

🌙 Noc vědců se Zeptej se vědce bude i v Praze! 👉 Tak si uložte 26. 9. v 19:15 na Přírodovědecké fakultě UK. 👈 👀 A s kým se uvidíte? ⬇️

1/3 Rooks that understand us when we speak! Leo, a 21-year-old rook, began following verbal instructions spontaneously during comparative cognition experiments. He has been tested for this ability, and did great. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Goffins being social in Singapur - enjoying fieldwork with @theroesa.bsky.social

Stay tuned for a very exciting update coming shortly from the ManyBirds Project! Eeek!

🎓✨ It’s official – I am now a Ph.D. 🎓✨ After years of research, fieldwork, writing, and countless discussions, I successfully defended my dissertation on predator recognition in birds. I couldn’t have done this without the support of my colleagues, mentors, friends, family and birds. Thank you! 🦅🙏

In robins, males and females sing to defend a territory. A new paper in @royalsocietypublishing.org shows that both increase vocal effort when hearing the song of an intruder, regardless of its sex. This highlights the role of female birdsong in displaying aggression: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Light pollution is causing birds around the world to sing for longer each day, prolonging their vocalizations on average by 50 minutes, according to a new study in Science. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Uz7vzP

🤩 Both amusing and informative! #BirdCognition #Ornithology 🪶

Broad in scope but strikingly concise, highly accessible, and nuanced - go get this book if you have even the slightest interest in birds and/or vertebrate brain evolution. I will use it a lot. Congrats @evoneuro.bsky.social! #neuroskyence 🧪

New @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social paper out today in @royalsociety.org Biology Letters. We found adult jackdaws can learn to tolerate usually bullied or ignored juveniles when they provided information about a new foraging resource. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

New paper alert 🚨 We test quantity discrimination in #magpies using both a cognitive task and playback experiment and find that birds can discriminate between quantities in both! Interestingly, performance in the two task was negatively correlated! 🐦 @mandyridley.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/behe...

The video of the talk in Frankfurt on "Born Knowing" by MITPress (in English) and by Adelphi (translated in Italian) www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfEp...

Our new review on numerical cognition in birds, just out in Nature Reviews Psychology! 🐦🧠 Behavior, neurobiology & field studies across avian species Very fond of the neurobiology part :) 📖 Read it here: rdcu.be/eyErI

Out now: The physiological costs of leadership We reveal that initiating movements—especially when attempting to initiate against a majority and when there is directional conflict—drives elevated heart rates in vulturine guineafowl www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @currentbiology.bsky.social

1/4 Use of tools (for allogrooming) in orcas They have been recorded (Salish Sea) using kelp, cutting it (technically the first documentation of toolmaking in cetaceans) and using it to groom others. (paper) www.cell.com/current-biol...

Late to the party but the last paper of my PhD was published earlier this year! Pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) and Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) can discriminate between pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, but not between heterospecifics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

NEW PAPER: Same-sex partnerships in birds: a review of the current literature and a call for more data. ➡️ vist.ly/3n99bk6 #ornithology #birds #same-sexbehaviour #review #partnerships @tashgillies.bsky.social @katrina-siddiqi.bsky.social Illustration: @bertillemohring.bsky.social

1/2 Pigeons pay attention to where other pigeons are looking They used a motion capture system to study this. The probability of them paying attention to an object increases with the number of pigeons already looking at it. It is linear, with no quorum or limit (paper) www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Od špačků k hashtagům: Hejna na nebi a v online světě lidí 👨‍🔬 Etolog Ondřej Fišer a filozof jazyka Tomáš Koblížek na této dvojpřednášce objasní, jak výzkum ptačích hejn inspiruje studium internetových komunit. @laniusondrej.bsky.social @tomaskoblizek.bsky.social

We are seeking a full-time Managing Editor for our journal Animal Behaviour. This editor will be involved in all stages of the publication process & must have a general understanding of the topics covered. Position starts Oct 1, application deadline July 31. More details: www.asab.org/opportunities

👨‍🔬 Etolog Ondřej Fišer a filozof jazyka Tomáš Koblížek objasní, jak výzkum ptačích hejn inspiruje studium internetových komunit. 👍 První část - spolupráce ptáků. 👀 youtu.be/CL2oHBFcd-E?... ✌️ Druhá část - internetová hejna (brzy na Youtube). @laniusondrej.bsky.social @tomaskoblizek.bsky.social

NEW PAPER🎺 How does cognition determine an individual’s fitness? A systematic review of the links between cognition, behaviour and fitness in non-human animals Lots of studies try to explain how cognition might evolve, by taking a behavioural ecology approach Has this approach made any progress?🧵

Selection Shapes Diverse Animal Minds: our special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans B on the diverse evolutionary processes underlying cognitive evolution is out today. Thanks to all our contributors! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Why did some birds evolve to be so clever? Mark O'Hara & Berenika Mioduszewska took on the challenge of studying wild Goffin's cockatoos on a small Indonesian island. Their exciting findings help answer that question. Listen: linktr.ee/wild_behavior_pod Photo: Goffin Lab Tanimbar

Yes, #birds do form same-sex relationships. No, this does not mean the end of the species. 🪶🧪🏳️‍🌈 New newsletter post for Beaks & Bones! Available here: beaksandbones.substack.com/p/same-sex-p... #ornithology #biology #scicomm

🐦Pigeons! 🙀Personality! 👥Flock cohesion! 🦅Predation threat! Our May #ASABEditorsChoice for the #AnimalBehaviourJournal: “Personality composition affects group cohesion of homing pigeons in response to novelty and predation threat” Read here: doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2025.123122

😍 Thank you, Maja, for the wonderful summary of our research. I would like to add that this is not all—another batch of crazy bird scarecrows will be coming soon. Stay tuned 🤩🪶🦅🧪 @ckecz.bsky.social #BirdCognition #Ornithology

1/2 Not so vindictive! Sometimes, honey guides lead people to snakes or dead animals. This makes the honey hunters respect them more; they believe it is a punishment for not sharing the honey on previous occasions. But these are only mistakes. (paper) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🦆 Jak ptáci řídí svůj letový provoz? 🐦‍⬛ A jak souvisí ptačí hejna s kyberšikanou? 💻 👨‍🔬 Etolog Ondřej Fišer a filozof jazyka Tomáš Koblížek vám poví o tom, jak výzkum ptačích hejn inspiruje studium internetových komunit. 👇 @laniusondrej.bsky.social @tomaskoblizek.bsky.social

Byli jste na naší debatě v rámci Týdne mozku? 🎥 Jestli ne - máme pro vás záznam! 👀 A pokud ano - můžete si ji pustit znovu. 🙌🏼 🧠 Záznam z debaty najdete na našem youtube kanálu: youtu.be/9pssBuiIyHU 😁 Dejte nám vědět do komentářů, jak se vám debata líbila!

Great talk and visit from my “lab cousin” @laniusondrej.bsky.social. He’s done some cool work with the wild Goffins cockatoos in Tanimbar as a guest researcher - it was super cool to hear about his adventures 🤩

Goffins, shrikes, tits — I had the pleasure of talking about all of them at #VetMedUni in Vienna! 🇦🇹🪶🦜🦅 Thanks to @mohara.bsky.social and @bmioduszewska.bsky.social for the invitation. 🤩 It was fantastic to catch up with this wonderful group of brilliant people over good 🍻 #ComparativeCognition

-30 Days to Registration Deadline!
Secure your spot at CogEvo 2025. Registration closes on May 30, 2025
Register now: event.unitn.it/cogevo/ Join the conversation on cognition and evolution!

Great tit chicks being raised by Blue tit parents? Uncommon, but it happens. However, research shows that being raised by foster-parents has life-changing consequences for Great tit chicks. 🧪🪶 Read more in my latest newsletter: beaksandbones.substack.com/p/cross-fost... #birds #ornithology

Výzkum online hate speech je čím dál víc o chování hejn, ne jednotlivců. Takže nastal čas spojit síly s ornitology. Aneb v rámci @Zeptej_se_vedce budeme mít společnou přenášku s ornitologem @laniusondrej.bsky.social o hejnech na nebi a na zemi. Srdečně zveme do SI na Staromáku.

👨‍🔬 Etolog Ondřej Fišer @laniusondrej.bsky.social a filozof jazyka Tomáš Koblížek @tomaskoblizek.bsky.social si pro vás připravili dvojpřednášku o tom, jak výzkum ptačích hejn inspiruje studium internetových komunit.

Horror monsters for birds By modifying the eyes of the sparrowhawks, great tits find them: either harmless like a pigeon (with no eyes), or absolutely terrifying (with frontal eyes in line or under the beak). (paper) www.researchgate.net/publication/... @laniusondrej.bsky.social

1/7 Alternatives for a complex mind Look at the image, it shows the proportion of neurons in the pallium (in blue) and in the cerebellum (red). Primates (including humans) have a rodent-like proportion (paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... by @gallinaciega.bsky.social via @Raccoonologist

🧠🦅 Facial configuration matters 🦅🧠 We tested if wild #GreatTits recognise predators not just by what facial elements are present (eyes, beak), but also how they’re arranged. 👁️🔄 Rotate the eyes 90° = more fear 👁️↩️ Rotate them 180° = same fear 👁️🚫 No eyes/beak = no fear #BirdCognition 🐦🪶🧪 #JCOMP

In this fascinating paper by the Long lab, activity was recorded from the vocal production region of the budgerigar. These neurons form a map of phonetic features just like in humans. This, however, was not the case in the homologous region of the zebra finch 🧠! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🦜🗣️

🧠🦅 Czech interview about bird intelligence in Czech Radio České Budějovice 🦅🧠 @irozhlas.cz budejovice.rozhlas.cz/moudry-jako-... #Ornithology #AnimalCognition 🪶