We are hiring – postdoc position exploring how kinship shapes social ageing in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social and Prof Rufus Johnstone (Cambridge) starts 1st April 2026 and ends 31st March 2029. Apps close 2nd Feb. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPZ788/p...

With ten days to go to submit your symposia proposal, we're here to answer your most burning question: What is the registration cost? #AcademicTwitter #Conferencechatter #ECBB2026

Yesterday it was cows using tools, today its penguins using satellite imagery.

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

Ever wonder how birds are able to identify their nest? Jennings et al. show that nests can become scented like the birds that occupy them, which may enable birds to use olfaction to accomplish this critical task. Read now ahead of print! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Charley Harper, "Darwin's Finches", from "The Giant Golden Book of Biology", 1961

Ever wonder what proportion of high profile social media research is tied to the tech industry? New from me, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com. Thread tomorrow. arxiv.org/abs/2601.11507

Note to self: Avoid low hanging branches.

Cow Tools! We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years. We breed them and exploit them It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS Here I describe our study (paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social with @auersperga.bsky.social

A Beneficial Role For Orange Pigments In Birds And Animals #SciComm🧪 by @grrlscientist.bsky.social #physiology #cancer #pigments🎨 #pheomelanin🟠 #evolution #ecology #birds🦉 #ornithology🪶 www.forbes.com/sites/grrlsc...

If you are organising a symposium related to animal cognition for #ECBB2026, and would like to develop/guest edit a special collection in the journal Animal Cognition to accompany it, please get in touch with us at [email protected] #academicconference #academicsky #animalbehaviour

Has anyone in #bioacoustics used hydromoth cases for terrestrial PAM? Does it change the sound quality? My study site (Philippines) is very typhoon-centric and sometimes water gets inside my IPX7 case

‘Dear Enemies’ Are Made When A Song Sparrow Learns To Sing www.forbes.com/sites/rebecc...

The Birdsong Lab is recruiting graduate students! Links in the comments. Please repost!

Stupid idea that has been plaguing me all weekend

Look, does our university fee system create an active market in higher education? No. But does it function to incentivise investment in your education and encourage aspiration? Well, also no. But at least it does fund the universities? Ha, you're not going to believe this.

New paper examining song type sharing between Rock Wrens in NoCo, with @laurynbenedict.bsky.social journal.afonet.org/vol97/iss1/a...

cool! but my first response was "not the dress again".

I am recruiting postbacs for my parakeet sociality and cognition project, ideally to start in Feb/Mar this year. Help spreading the word would be appreciated! More information and application link available here: ornithologyexchange.org/jobs/board/s...

Can humans & animals really use internal maps to take shortcuts? Tolman famously said yes - based largely on his Sunburst maze. Our new review & meta-analysis suggests evidence is far weaker than you might think. 🧵👇 doi.org/10.1111/ejn.... @uofgpsychneuro.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social

Fieldwork carries real risk in rural Mexico. That context matters in the disappearance of biologist Miguel Ángel de la Torre Loranca, kidnapped in Veracruz in Nov 2025 after a “request for dialogue.” His family says he was taken alive and is calling for visibility.

Happy new year! I wanted to share my new Python package called chatter that streamlines the process of applying AI/ML models to animal communication 🦜🦇🐋🐵👨‍🌾 masonyoungblood.github.io/chatter/

"I don’t know why my fellowship was terminated. I suspect that it has something to do with studying a species that doesn’t fit the binary of what we expect to see in nature, with completely different males and females." @carlzimmer.com profiles my wonderful coauthor @jjinsing.bsky.social Gift link.

2025. The impact of urbanisation on social behaviour: a comprehensive review. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Another NYE, another night of terror for millions of birds across the Netherlands (and around the world). Last year we published in @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social Frontiers 🧪 about the massive impact of fireworks on birds 🦅. Paper: doi.org/10.1002/fee.... Thread below 🧵👇

Did you know there are 2 types of avocado varieties? A-types switch from female to male, B-types male to female, within a single day. This reciprocal sex alternation promotes cross-pollination and has a simple genetic basis. Read more in this recent preprint from the final chapter of my PhD thesis 🥑

Nice article on Floreana recovery after pest eradication, including news on Darwin’s Finches songs by colleagues of the @klf-univienna.bsky.social bbc.com/future/artic...

The Ship of Lost Soles

Thank you so much for the invitation!!! I am taking requests! What would you like to hear in a plenary????

We've crawled, swam, hopped, flew, scuttled and run through our ECBB 2026 Plenary Speaker list to reach the final plenary announcement. Who is rounding off our speaker list? 🥁 🥁 🥁 It's the fantastic Dr Christopher Schell!

We know you're jumping with excitement to find out the penultimate ECBB 2026 plenary speaker so we won't keep you waiting much longer! 🥁 🥁 🥁 It's the marvellous @biobiiana.bsky.social!

If 2 more people sign, we can get past the 1500 signatories ;-)

Our call for symposia now open! We are now accepting submissions for symposia, with submissions for oral/poster presentations invited from 31 January 2026. For more info, or to download the proposal form, visit our conference page 👇 www.aru.ac.uk/science-and-...

Ready to meet our third plenary speaker? We are delighted to announce it's.... 🥁 🥁 🥁 The extraordinary @mherberstein.bsky.social

We've announced half of our ECBB plenary speakers already! Are you ready to keep going with our next reveal? Who could it be??? 🥁 🥁 🥁 It's the brilliant @andyradford.bsky.social!

And in response to headlines like "there is no need for masks", here is the 1 minutes from my interview where I discuss basic preventative measures (including masks!). Also note that NHS stats like A&E and Ambulance waits are lower than same time 3 years ago, even with earlier flu wave.

Alternative take: Universities (and all institutions really) are terrible at predicting job market changes over a timescale of 5 to 10 years. Thus, turning them into clout chasing vocational training centers is a stupid bet when the original Humboldtian mission showed surprising resilience.

Line up! Slither up! Crawl up! Climb up! No matter how you're moving or on how many legs, it's time to find out our first ECBB 2026 plenary speaker. 🥁 🥁 🥁 It's the incredible @ljnbrent.bsky.social!

We are delighted to announce our second ECBB 2026 Plenary Speaker! 🥁 🥁 🥁 The amazing Professor Tim Caro! #ecbb #ecbb2026

This entire grift relies on convincing people that they don't know how to do the things they have always known how to do, and ironically, if it works, we will, in a very short amount of time, forget how to do all the things we have always known how to do.

3 great words on a Monday morning: Accepted for publication! Our paper "Hushed disputes between noisy neighbours: Ovenbirds vary song amplitude during conflicts with territorial rivals" is coming to Animal Behaviour. 🤫🎶🐦 By Connor Acorn, Jenn Foote, and me. [📷: J. Foote] @animbehsociety.bsky.social

Yep, still very much an accurate description of eugenics 👇

@rebeccasear.bsky.social gives a great quote from Alfred Russell Wallace: eugenics was “simply the meddlesome interference of an arrogant scientific priestcraft”. Still very much spot on.

EARLY VIEW in IBIS Fight song: variation in singing behaviour and song structure during natural agonistic interactions in a tropical songbird, Adelaide's Warbler (Setophaga adelaidae) | onlinelibrary.wiley.... Peter C. Mower et al | #ornithology 🪶

Have you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too! preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵 Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/9

Job alert! Fully funded PhD position on the link between curiosity and cognition in lemurs at our long-term field site Kirindy Forest in Madagascar @kirindy.bsky.social & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. This project is part of @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social. Apply here: www.dpz.eu

Pick your fucking baby?!? JFC! They’re not fucking puppies.

Filling this out as individual. Telling them that if I had to wait for ten years to apply for indefinite leave to remain I would not have thrown myself into my community as I did. I’d be aloof and shorttermist w/ little to none affective commitment to the U.K.