Careful dissection of genetic association claims in a couple of recent studies of human genetics royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Reminder of today’s seminar at 3.30

View from my office window in the new @biology.ox.ac.uk building. I didn’t *ask* to be put somewhere with a Rook colony right outside the window but it worked out pretty well 🤓

🚨 Come join the fantastic long-tailed tit team 🚨 🐦We are recruiting a field technician to collect behavioural data on a long-term studied population of wild long-tailed tits (passerine birds). 🪶20 months contract in Sheffield, UK. 🌲Deadline: 23/11/2025. jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Technici...

This is an exciting project as part of an exciting larger grant - excellent opportunity

We're hiring! Post-doctoral fellow in evolutionary ecology w/focus on ecophysiology. Uncover why global warming and heatwaves reduce reproductive success and cause excess mortality in wild birds. Work with @cyanistesnord.bsky.social 👏 Please apply no later than 25 November. 👉 lnkd.in/dkAh9jnc

This video summary (I think a new innovation for the RBBP) is excellent

This week's EGI seminar - 3.30 on Friday in @biology.ox.ac.uk with Kristen Ruegg on the Bird Genoscape Project. Also live-streamed; details below www.birdgenoscape.org

Once a year I like to remind myself and others how amazing Guira Cuckoo eggs are!

Dawn visit to Otmoor this morning rewarded with the elusive Water Pipit that's been around here the last few days in front of screen 1. Never close, light poor, and always looking nervous but a tricky species to see locally these days.

More Mapping the UK's Flat Flies Project results published today with Adrian Smith & @sheldonbirds.bsky.social 212 host-parasite interactions, including 70 not previously reported, & a recent switch to gulls by some Louse Flies, Hippoboscidae. @btobirds.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Reminder of today’s @egioxford.bsky.social seminar from @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social in @biology.ox.ac.uk - will actually be in Lecture Theatre 1

A very close singing Coal Tit yesterday morning - fascinating to see these almost perfectly regular repeated motifs in the song with very rapid changes over huge frequency range. Must require some very precise neuromuscular control of bird's vocal system macaulaylibrary.org/asset/644354...

Coming up soon (9 am today) an opportunity to hear this classic episode of In Our Time on Bird Migration featuring Tim Guilford of @biology.ox.ac.uk www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

Private Eye nailing it.

If you are in the Oxford area next Thursday, I’m giving a talk on the birds of the Lye Valley area. It’s a multimedia presentation (pictures and calls!) covering the resident and migratory birds recorded in this part of the city. See you there! @friendlyevalley.bsky.social #Oxonbirding #Oxford

I am looking for a postdoc to work in our long-term system of food-caching mountain chickadees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The expected start is April 2026. Please see details here: chickadeecognition.com/positions If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).

I'm very excited to go back to Oxford, where I did my undergrad, to talk about the group's recent work on jackdaws and what it tells us about the evolution of sociality and cognition!

Fine photos of the recent pair of Twite at Farmoor by Gareth Casburn. Can anything be done from plumage to assign to subspecies? - tagging @j-dunning.net ebird.org/checklist/S2...

We’re kicking off the year’s EGI seminars this Friday - follow @egioxford.bsky.social for details of these & forthcoming jobs, papers etc

The Life & Mind Building aglow at the end of the day. It’s thrilling to see this so busy from top to bottom with everyone from undergraduates to senior professors

Homage to Xavier Bou: little swifts at the Olifants River high-water bridge, Kruger National Park. Unstacked from video taken with an Iphone 14. #birds #photography #SouthAfrica #iPhone

Humans perceive but animals don’t: pitfalls in using plasticine models for assessing biotic interactions buff.ly/7hcLYXx | #ProcB #Ecology

📢4-year fully funded #PhD on seasonal timing of egg overwintering insects 🦋🦗🪳 🔬Identify universal mechanisms underlying #insect egg developmental time under #ClimateChange 📌@niooknaw.bsky.social @animalecol-nioo.bsky.social ℹ️ vacatures.knaw.nl/job-invite/2... ❗Application deadline: 7 December 2025

Putting this here, partly to remind myself to read it (🙄) but also because it looks important and useful onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

🚨 2nd master’s project! Interested in bird migration & genomics? 🧬🐦 Use whole-genome data to trace the recent colonization of Ouessant Island by Blue Tits and explore how irruptive migratory events can shape colonization dynamics. Please share! #ornithology www.vogelwarte.ch/de/wir/mitar...

The run of recent excellent county birding in Oxfordshire continues with a pair of Twite at Farmoor late afternoon today - first for about 20 years! Almost all the birds have been found by the same observer who’s on a remarkable run…

Two full days teaching this week introducing ~120 1st yr undergraduate biologists to Wytham Woods, long-term population studies & @biology.ox.ac.uk. Always great teaching outside. The eagle-eyed might spot Chris Perrins in the front row (undergrad days >70 years ago!) - not much I can teach him…

Light going rapidly, but made it to Standlake this evening to see the juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper that had been found earlier, continuing a very lucky streak for me in the county this autumn: species #190 in Oxfordshire this year.

Perhaps seeming of local interest, but this series of articles weighing arguments around major infrastructure projects and their challenges from @oxfordclarion.bsky.social is both sobering reading as well as very good writing peppered with tongue-in-cheek humour oxfordclarion.uk/infrastructu...

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Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

I'm v excited to be recruiting a PhD student to work on badger behaviour and ecology! Starting date is March 2026; see the ad here, or message me for more details: www.gregalbery.me/s/March-2026...

🚨Fully-funded PhD opportunity in my group🚨 🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾 Find out by studying meerkats! 🧪Epigenetic clocks ✨Bioinformatics 📊Long-term data 🌍Kalahari fieldwork 💡Big evolutionary questions Get in touch or APPLY NOW Please share! www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...

Wow! A paper on Wheatear plumage evolution in @science.org - unforeseen collision of interests here www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A really high quality article on bird migration in a national newspaper using excellent graphics - the Desertas Petrel/Hurricane interaction is great! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Bit of a surprise this afternoon when checked email to see @plewin.bsky.social had heard probable Yellow-browed calling in Oxford University Parks. Had no binoculars and hardly any time but heard several times calling from exact same spot around 5.15 - really is expected inland these days…

Hearing about similarly large increases across some of the long-term fellowship schemes in the UK. Will be important to understand where this surge comes from, whether likely to be transient etc

Climate change effects on synchrony between trophic levels is a pressing research question. But how does the substantial spatial variation in phenology of trees drive local adaptation in insects in classic tri-trophic systems? New work from @rona-learmonth.bsky.social @andreaestandia.bsky.social ⬇️

Upper Thames Curlew Partnership Crowdfunder has hatched! Target £25k in 6 weeks. Please support and share widely. Thank you. @birdguides.bsky.social @btobirds.bsky.social @curlewaction.bsky.social #Curlews @sheldonbirds.bsky.social @bbcoxford.bsky.social www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-us-sa...

It’s been brilliant to see undergraduates using the building this first full week

New work from @devisatarkar.bsky.social et al on how effects of climate variability- particularly more unusual events - depend on developmental stage & prevailing conditions in Wytham Woods great tits.

Large citizen science datasets are powerful tools for biodiversity science, but they may have biases. Nice new paper from @louisbackstrom.bsky.social et al. showing that for eBird and Birdtrack lists there is a tendency for rare species to be over-represented onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

What a stunning bird to come across today: the rare dark morph of the Atlantic Islands subspecies of the Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla heineken)!

A Little Curlew on Öland in Sweden on Saturday - would cause a stir over here I suspect

A longer blog post about a week on Fair Isle with @sheldonbirds.bsky.social: www.outofthebluesky.co/2025/10/11/a... Many thanks to all at @fairislebirdobs.bsky.social, a fantastic place with incredible food! Honourable mentions for @lukemarriner1.bsky.social and @philwoollen.bsky.social #ukbirding

One of the most incredible WTF!! moments I have witnessed in 41 years birding Belvide. 8 White-rumped Sandpiper on the north shore between 4pm-5.30pm. Just short of a British Record of 11 on the outer Hebrides. Thought I'd lost the plot when I saw them. Still pinching myself. #UKbirding

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...

Honouring the life of Sir John Gurdon, who died earlier this week: awarded the Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine for seminal work carried out in Oxford Zoology (now @biology.ox.ac.uk) showing that mature cells could be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medic...

Three Bicentenary research fellowships on offer at @officialuom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social for exceptional ECRs with <3y postdoc experience 3yrs salary + £30k pa research expenses Do you have a great idea & want to join @mermanchester.bsky.social? www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/sup...