🔈New study! Microplastics found in 62% of White-throated Dipper broods in Scotland & Basque Country. No body condition effects detected. Led by @cmartin3.bsky.social @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk @aranzadiornito.bsky.social 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #Ornithology🐦 #Microplastics #Freshwater💧

Register now for the ExE 2026 Conference in Cornwall, UK, focusing on evolutionary ecology. Join exciting sessions and workshops! Spots are limited. More info: https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/exe/ #conference

Great pre-print led by @davididiaquez.bsky.social discussing possible causes of declines in adult and nestling mass. I suggested it be titled "Weapons of mass reduction"

We have published a new pre-print showing a decline in great tit adult and nestling mass of around 1 gram in 47 y. [rate of approx. -0.040 Hadanes] With @ellafcole.bsky.social, @devisatarkar.bsky.social, Sam. Crofts, @mcmahok.bsky.social & @sheldonbirds.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is gearing up to be such a fantastic conference. Filling a void in the meeting landscape that’s been ever more conspicuous. So much so that moves are already afoot to organise a sequel. So if Future You wants to boast that you’ve been to them all, you will need to register ASAP.

Coffee and improved cognition, reduced dementia >130,000 people followed 37 years Benefit seen only with caffeinated coffee or tea and most pronounced ~2 cups/day @jama.com ☕️☕️https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2844764

This week's seminar will be given by Dr Paul Acker from NTNU, Norway on "Processes of life-history adaptation to spatio-seasonal environmental changes" - seminar at 3.30 on Friday in Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk All welcome & will also be streamed - see details below

🧬 Excited to present some of our recent research on 🐦‍⬛: (1/3) Contrary to expectations, migratory Eurasian blackbirds had longer telomeres than residents at a major stopover (Helgoland), despite similar mitochondrial DNA copy numbers 🔗 #OpenAccess nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A selection of part of a flock of 500,000 starlings at Ham Wall Nature Reserve in Somerset arriving at reedbeds to roost this evening @mybirdcards.com

This week's EGI seminar in @biology.ox.ac.uk will be given by Dr Kirsty MacPhie from @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social on the contrasting insights to be drawn from studies of phenology in @phenoweb.bsky.social and @rumdeerresearch.bsky.social. Usual time and place - details below with streaming info ⬇️

📘 New book out soon ! I’m excited to share that 𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞-𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐨𝐯 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬: 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐑 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐄 is being published by Chapman & Hall / CRC Press Hope it’s useful to students, researchers, and practitioners #StatisticalEcology #NIMBLE

A reminder about @jon-slate.bsky.social seminar in 58 minutes this afternoon... Will be live-streamed - see poster ⬇️ for details of how to get link.

Port Meadow (from Wolvercote) at its best this morning.

This week's EGI seminar will be given by Prof Jon Slate @jon-slate.bsky.social of @sheffielduni.bsky.social at 3.30 on Fri 30 Jan in LT1 in LaMB @biology.ox.ac.uk. OK, it's not quite birds, but our colleagues' work on @soaysheep.bsky.social has much in common with what we do. All welcome: details ⬇️

Opi - Omi down under version.

Kangaroo chaos

I’m excited to share our new paper in Ecology! Our 9‑year study across an urban–rural gradient shows native trees, especially oaks, boost blue tit breeding success. More native foliage supports more of the birds preferred prey and improves reproductive success. 📃 doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... #ornithology

@hoyporhoy.bsky.social de @cadenaser.com habla de angulas y su pesca en el País Vasco sin mencionar que la anguila es una especie al mismo borde de la extinción Sigue un hilo explicando 1) lo Euskadi y 2) por qué hay que dejar de pescar, vender y comer anguila cadenaser.com/podcast/cade...

I am very happy to announce that my first PhD paper has been published today at the Journal of Animal Ecology!!! It is on how three penguin species have been shifting their breeding times in Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic in response to climate change. They are the fastest birds in doing so!

Published today in PNAS: www-pnas-org.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/doi/10.1073/... Mark Urban, Chris Elphick, and I argue that conservation programs should pay more attention to heritable within population variation, enabling rapid evolutionary response to environmental changes.

😮

Hoy, #PenguinAwarenessDay, es un día perfecto para recordar a Andrés Barbosa, el señor de los pingüinos. 🐧

For those of us who involved in running long-term studies, our work's value can be increased by synthetic studies like this one, which included Wytham Great Tit data, and suggests that plasticity in timing in response to temperatures buffers against population change www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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

🚨 PhD offer (please share) Fascinated by bird migration and movement ecology? 🦜🌍 Join us at @vogelwarte.bsky.social to study annual cycle energetics with multi-sensor loggers in multiple species Deadline: 20 Feb 2026 Starting: June 2026 Supervision: Martins Briedis & me Info: tinyurl.com/2dbv9nzh

Just a quick reminder of tomorrow's EGI seminar: please see joining etc details below

Delighted to begin this term's seminars with Malcolm Burgess @piedflynet.bsky.social from @rspb.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social on Migration behaviour, demography & phenology of declining migratory birds. Seminar at 3.30 on 16 Jan in LT1 in the LaMB @biology.ox.ac.uk: all welcome - see details ⬇️

Looking forward to an excellent series of seminars for the forthcoming term - programme now full till late March & will share programme very soon when we have a few last details. All seminars will be at 3.30 on Fridays in the Life & Mind Building (and usually streamed live)

New paper in TREE: we propose a framework to think more clearly about the scale of climate exposure of organisms—and why mismatches between climate data and biology can mislead ecological inference. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo... @ilyamaclean.bsky.social @ecophys.bsky.social @marthamunoz.bsky.social

I may be a bit early

Open up this picture fully. Then look at the surface of Mars. Then look up to the top right. Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky. Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos. That's Earth.

I guess that one could infer the phenology of Wytham great tits by my activity in Strava :-)

COAL TIT APPRECIATION POST Coal has a lot of negative connotations at this time of year, so let’s give this beautiful little bird some love 🖤 #BirdingScotland #UKWildlife #Nature #Wildlife #Christmas

New paper alert! Microclimate temperatures are more extreme than we previously thought! Near-ground temperatures are amplified in hot weather, cool refugia is lost and replaced with heat traps ☀️🔥🥵 escape from heat will be very hard for small ground-dwelling organisms doi.org/10.21425/fob...

Wytham gives, david takes.

Great talk by @rona-learmonth.bsky.social at #BES2025 on the absence of small scale local adaptation by winter moths to oak tree bud burst. Read more in this preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

***New** Latest wild bird trends in Europe: Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) indicators 1980–2024. Data = 168 bird species, 30 countries⬇️ @rspb.bsky.social @birdlifeeurope.bsky.social @ebcc.info 🐦@rspbscience.bsky.social pecbms.info/european-wil... pecbms.info/trends-and-i...

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students. I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

This week's seminar - last of this term - is our annual Christmas Seminar. We're welcoming Prof Tim Birkhead back to where he studied as a DPhil student ~50 years ago (can you can spot him in this 1978 photo?) Tim will be talking about "Sperm to Egg: Making a Biologist" - 3pm LT1 in the LaMB

‘Game changer’: System to track small animals from space takes flight—again | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti... #ornithology

Just a reminder of this week’s Seminar - 3.30 in LT1 in the LaMB

Someone know the authors?? Have they account here??? I have a doubt to ask them

This week’s EGI seminar will be given by @peterkorsten.bsky.social from Aberystwyth on the ecology of behavioural variation in the wild at 3.30pm Friday 5 Dec - LT1 in @biology.ox.ac.uk. All welcome & live-streamed: see joining details below.

El restaurante Kresala, de Barcelona ("Un tribut als pobles pesquers d'Euskadi") ha organizado un banquete en el que se han servido 15 kg de angula. Unos 30000 individuos de una especie En Peligro Crítico de Extinción José Carlos Capel lo cuenta en IG: www.instagram.com/p/DRuw4bVCOc... Va hilo

Thermal physiology meets quantitative genetics - our new paper explores the drivers of body temperature in nestling sparrows #ornithology @jevbio.bsky.social academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...

We are happy to announce that the next EOU Conference will be in Brno, Czech Republic in 2027! Check our website eounion.org and follow us on social media for regular updates! #ornithology #EOU2027

#AcademicRant Can we talk **again** about conference registration fees? I'd love to attend "big" conferences, but with EARLY-BIRD fees of €650, I just can't. And I am based in Western Europe. I'd also like to point out the total lack of remote attendance options. Who are those conferences for? 😤

Our next seminar on #UrbanEcology is in less than two weeks. This time it's on a Wednesday! This time, Juan Diego Ibáñez Álamo (@animalecpurban.bsky.social) from @universidadgranada.bsky.social will be talking about landscape configuration of urban green areas. 🔗 teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-joi...

There are still two more weeks to apply for the PhD position on nematodes, isotopes, metals and PFAS in the terns. Don't be shy to reach out when having questions about it either. :-)