There’s such beauty in variety – and the eggs laid by our terns show it too. In our newest paper we try to find patterns in this variety and test how female identity and age, as well as laying order, affect the colour, spottiness, shape, and size of eggs: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

This week's EGI seminar is being given by Dr Maria Moiron @mmoiron.bsky.social of the University of Bielefeld at 3.30pm on Friday 21 Nov in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk. See below for online joining details - all welcome!

Are you interested in PFAS and OCPs contamination in birds? In our latest publication, we studied the levels of these contaminants in Great tit eggs from areas with different anthropogenic pressures. Read the paper here for more details👇 doi.org/10.1007/s113...

**PhD opportunity @uniexecec.bsky.social** How is immunogenetic variation maintained in the wild? Why are alleles that increase disease susceptibility maintained in populations, when natural selection should eliminate them?

*PhD opportunity @uniexecec.bsky.social* How does antimicrobial resistance spread through ecosystems? Combine fieldwork (rodent trapping 🐭, habitat surveys 🌳, pheasant sampling 🦤), molecular techniques, GIS, and spatial modelling to understand AMR evolution and spread. 🔬🦠🧪 Please repost!

There’s one month left to apply for the PhD position on interactions between contaminants and parasites in common terns, co-supervised by @alicecarravieri.bsky.social, Bernd Sures from @unidue.bsky.social and myself. You can do so here: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/380142

The date is set for the next EOU Fledglings Meeting 🐥 in Gdansk, Poland! Share the news with your peers! 🦆

I am recruting a #postdoc for a project investigating the evolution of avian heat tolerance in @erc.europa.eu project #HotLife. Fieldwork over broad latitudinal gradients, common-garden experiments, and more. Read more and apply👇 shorturl.at/WA1Qa Would appreciate a re-post! @evoldir.bsky.social

📢 PhD opportunity at @cebc-chizelab.bsky.social @ifv-whv.bsky.social @unidue.bsky.social 🎓 Interactions between contaminants and parasites in common terns 📅 Apply by 12/12/2025 at euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/380142 #seabirds #ecotoxicology @univ-larochelle.fr @commonternproject.bsky.social

Out @animalecology.bsky.social today - a paper with David Ewing in which we explore the #HPAI outbreak in the terns. We find bird-to-bird transmission to be the main driver of infection and estimate the probability of mortality to drop from 0.26 to 0.14 from 2022 to 2023: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

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...

When we hypothesised female terns to have lower mercury levels than males due to egg laying, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social et al designed an elegant experiment to prove the effectiveness of this pathway. That proof just got published & the open access paper can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Another excellent paper by @matteobeccardi.bsky.social, with great help from Justine Bertam, @commonternproject.bsky.social, @pablosalmon.bsky.social, @icbm-uol.bsky.social

🚨 PhD alert 🚨 We are looking for a highly motivated student to use 🧬 genomics 🧬 and 🛰️ bio-logging 🛰️ approaches to disentangle cultural and genetic contributions to seabird migration 🐣 Think this is you, or someone you know? Then come to our Q&A session at on 29/09 and check out the ad below!

How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...

Our neighbours at the Banter See are no fan of the terns. Luckily the terns don't give a shit. Oh, or maybe sometimes they do. :-)

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

Happy to share our newest paper in which we investigated the non-breeding distribution of Australasian gannets #seabirds #ornithology @aurore-counilh.bsky.social www.int-res.com/abstracts/me...

Live from the field: the first 4 chicks of 2025 have hatched. ❤️ #babyboom

I am looking for a postdoc wanting to use functional genomics to understand why birds 🐦 struggle with climate warming in @erc.europa.eu project #HotLife. Ideal candidate is a molecular evolutionarybiologist. Join us at @biologylu.bsky.social. Details 👇 shorturl.at/wijEq Would appreciate a re-post!

Last weekend was exciting! Together with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social,‬ and thanks to the amazing teams at Druid & Interrex, we deployed the first gull-billed tern with a GPS. It returned to the nest after a quick preening session and for the last 3 days has shared its foraging sites with us.

Really worth a read if you are interested in life-history physiology or mitochondrial function 👇

Now 11 birds recaught 😎 new pressure loggers giving insights into migration I never thought possible, absolutely incredible technology. Wouldn’t be possible without the help of friends here in Georgia, Levan, Sopo, Vano and Natia 🇬🇪 ☺️

Chapter 10 is dedicated to the Banter See common terns, showing how they too have suffered from a population crash following the outbreaks of avian influenza in 2022 and 2023.

meanwhile in #Georgia - where and how long do #blackcaps breeding in this eastern #location migrate? @joewynnbirds.bsky.social @andalgalornis.bsky.social and @oscarvedder.bsky.social are on a mission & have already caught 9 returning #geolocator birds. stay tuned! @ifv-whv.bsky.social

Male inbreeding reduces fertility, but does not accelerate in vivo sperm senescence: an experimental approach in a polyandrous bird royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Evolution

And here's another shout-out to the wonderful tern-and-quail team, which, led by Nathalie and @matteobeccardi.bsky.social, prepared a gorgeous hat for Justine. ♥️

Yesterday, Justine Bertram, the lovely soul in the center of this picture, successfully defended her PhD thesis. As throughout her time with the terns and at the @ifv-whv.bsky.social, she did a brilliant job. I could not be more proud, or sad that she is fledging now.

Male inbreeding reduces fertility, but does not accelerate in vivo sperm senescence: an experimental approach in a polyandrous bird | royalsocietypublishi... | Biology Letters | #ornithology 🪶

More loveliness today: half of the F1 joined for the morning observations (and took 267 photos of terns), and we spotted a colour ringed bird. Turned out to be one of our 'own' 2022 chicks, who received her additional bling on migration.

Live from the field: the first egg of 2025 is a fact! Laid by a lovely geolocator lady, while her ringed partner looked proud. Mum is incubating, and dad is off now, presumably to catch her a fish. ♥️ #firstegg #seabirds #ornithology

Please share: (competitive) PhD funding in Strasbourg (France) to work on 🐧🔥: Physiological and reproductive consequences of ‘warm’ environmental conditions on land in a sub-polar penguin species Fieldwork in Crozet 🇹🇫 is forecasted (pending on HPAI situation) amethis3.unistra.fr/amethis-clie...

Happy to share our new publication on the effect of inbreeding on male fertility and sperm senescence, out now in @royalsocietypublishing.org. Many thanks to @oscarvedder.bsky.social, @btschirren.bsky.social and @ifv-whv.bsky.social. Take a look below if you want to know more about this work👇😉

New publication by @matteobeccardi.bsky.social and @oscarvedder.bsky.social (with @btschirren.bsky.social) in @royalsocietypublishing.org: 'Male inbreeding reduces fertility, but does not accelerate in vivo sperm senescence: an experimental approach in a polyandrous bird' doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

204 birds have now been registered by the automated registration system. Yesterday, one of our favourites returned too: 11-yr old Dextro, to us better known as our ‘bouncer boy’, because he’s the one that nests just behind the spot where we tie our boat and tries to keep us out of the colony. ♥️

They're back! The first three terns arrived yesterday morning. The very first one was 18-year old Calimero. He was followed by 7-year old Severina and 13-year old Fabrice. All arived between 10:29 and 10:54. ♥️ #phenology #seabirds

Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long-term experiment in a precocial bird | J Animal Ecology @britishecologicalsociety.org | besjournals.onlineli... | #ornithology 🪶🧪

Happy to see this out:

Field assistant position available to support a project on host-parasite interactions in Bank voles in beautiful Skåne, Sweden 🇸🇪 from mid July to end Sept 2025. The position is paid, right to work in the UK is required. Get in touch for more information. @uniexecec.bsky.social 🐭🧪🔬🌲🦠

Matteo Beccardi provides the story behind his paper, “Inbreeding accelerates reproductive senescence, but not survival senescence, in a precocial bird“, which was shortlisted for this year’s Elton Prize. 🪽 journalofanimalecology.wordpress.com/wp-admin/pos... @matteobeccardi.bsky.social

These are 5 autumn migration routes travelled by the same common tern. He’s not the only one showing such flexibility, and it pays, because in our new paper, published by @royalsocietypublishing.org, we show that route flexibility is associated with minimized headwind exposure: tinyurl.com/4dawhwzj

New publication by @commonternproject.bsky.social: 'Parental blood mercury levels are correlated, and predictive of those in eggs in a long-lived seabird' www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Come work with me! #sparrows #microbiomes #reproduction

We are searching broadly for a PhD candidate interested in the evolvability of heat tolerance and the interaction between evolution and plasticity in 🐦🐣, based at @biologylu.bsky.social. Be great if you could re-post. Details 👇 #ERC #HotLife @ercresearch.bsky.social

Excited to share my first paper with the Liedvogel lab @genmig.bsky.social at @ifv-whv.bsky.social: Together with @jpartecke.bsky.social from the @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social and many others, we looked at the genetics of partial migration in blackbirds onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Welcome to the new blue sky account of the Institute of Avian Research in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Here we will post updates on science, news and outreach of our Institute: ifv-vogelwarte.de/en/home

Just launched: seabirds.faralloninstitute.org, a beautiful hub for seabird time series data & insights into ocean health. We're grateful for the Banter See terns to be included.

Want to use a unique dataset to study the spatial and temporal dynamics of genomic diversity and its drivers in a wild bird population? Apply for this #NERC #PhD position @uniexecec.bsky.social @animalecol-nioo.bsky.social. www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... 🐦🌍🧪🧬 #ExeterCEC #Vlieland #NIOO-KNAW

Does inbreeding affect personality traits? An experimental study in a precocial bird | link.springer.com/ar... | Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology | #ornithology 🪶

Happy to see this published! Excellent work done by PhD student Matteo Beccardi, with great help from @mmoiron.bsky.social, @pablosalmon.bsky.social and @btschirren.bsky.social. #inbreeding #personality #quail link.springer.com/article/10.1...