Our oldest kid thinks that my entire job is based around catching birds. Almost everyday as I'm leaving he says, "good luck catching birds today!" I decided against correcting him, mostly because catching birds everyday would be an amazing job.

I know this AI generated a lot of discussion yesterday, and it's shocking how much the pitch on their website changed overnight. It went from "Einstein does the work for you." to "Einstein is your partner and tutor." Either the negative press mattered or they got a lawyer. companion.ai/einstein

Field job in the beautiful mountains of NE Oregon doing passive acoustic monitoring and woodpecker demography just went live. Please share! jobs.rwfm.tamu.edu/view-job/?id...

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

Our new paper is out today in Animal Behaviour: "Hushed disputes between noisy neighbours: Ovenbirds vary song amplitude during conflicts with territorial rivals." By Connor Acorn, Jenn Foote, & me. @animbehsociety.bsky.social How loud is an Ovenbird's song? It depends... 🧵1

Students are always surprised/confused to learn that roadrunners are in the same taxonomic order as cuckoos (Cuculiformes). Until I saw this video, I never gave much though to how similar their vocalizations could be.

We (as a society) are good and truly f*cked

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

The Birdsong Lab is recruiting graduate students to study vocal communication in tropical birds. The deadline to apply is less than a week away! #birds #birdsong #ornithology #animalbehavior #BirdsCanada #AcademicSky #SciComm

Can confirm it's possible to fully unplug from Amazon Prime. We did last year and ended up spending a large portion of those recaptured dollars at local small businesses. But, change is hard, goods are more expensive than ever, and Amazon remains the fastest, cheapest option for too much.

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics? 1) Write NSF 2) Write your Congressperson 3) CC us at [email protected] so we can compile + follow up Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

Looks like an amazing tool, especially for those of us teaching Ornithology, Evolution, etc. Also, just fun to cruise around and learn about new birds and taxonomic relationships.

Wow! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I first learned about the misleading scale of the Mercator projection in college geography and was astounded. So much of what I thought I knew about the world had to be reevaluated. I think about that moment often.

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

I finally broke down and asked for a @birdfybynetvue.bsky.social feeder for Christmas. So glad that I did! It’s been fun watching the usual suspects, but yesterday I would’ve totally missed this relative rarity without it. Enjoy the red-breasted nuthatch!

I would not be the scientist I am today without Ellen's mentorship. She is proof that you can be kind, supportive, and compassionate while still achieving success at the highest level. She always reminded me to try the carrot, not just the stick. The world needs more people like Ellen.

New #paleoart on #FossilFriday: #Tiktaalik sees the world. Discussions of early #tetrapods often focus on limbs and lungs, but major changes also took place in their eyes. Seeing further and clearer than any animal before, they were the first to clearly see sunsets, stars, and the moon. #sciart

"Morning Light on a Carolina Wren" 5" x 7" Oil on panel I just think they're neat

A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

New post by me on #MITPressReader @mitpress.bsky.social On the 100th anniversary of the #ScopesMonkeyTrial the ways we depict #evolution can still give an erroneous progressive view (that evolution leads to humans or ‘increased complexity’). thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/is-our-pictu...

Postdoc position in individual-level incentives, social learning, and payoff-biased imitation shape group-level accuracy in complex prediction and decision-making tasks in Konstanz files.newsletter2go.com/l3slzozn/s_i...

Everyone should check out the recently updated CDC webpage on Vaccines and Autism. It's now loaded with blatant anti-vax misinformation. Infuriating, but also totally unsurprising considering who it in charge. www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safe...

Seeking Advice: My department needs to order new chest waders. We're looking for cost-effective, reliable, and long lasting ones (hah!). Even advice for those to avoid would be helpful! We currently use Cabela's waders, but online reviews suggest they have gone downhill...thanks!

Seeking Advice: My department needs to order new chest waders. We're looking for cost-effective, reliable, and long lasting ones (hah!). Even advice for those to avoid would be helpful! We currently use Cabela's waders, but online reviews suggest they have gone downhill...thanks!

Things I wish I'd known as a junior academic #37

Anyone know if any good apps for estimating surface area? (Or maybe manual/imageJ are the best alternatives?) We're measuring surface area of bird wings tomorrow with grid paper but I'm hoping to improve the class in the future!

Making students do The Wave to explain how action potentials travel along a neuron is one of my favorite parts of teaching Intro Bio II. One of the best teaching evals I've received was "I will never forget that I am a voltage-gated sodium channel."

Wow! Definitely worth a look for those of us teaching and doing research on stress.

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).

No kings only kingfishers, kinglets, and kingbirds! Rally in Bend, Oregon, drew thousands …. #nokingsday #birders

Glad to finally see some good news out of IU, courtesy of our rivals at Purdue stepping up big time.

I can’t think of a better reason to finally join Bluesky - my first first-authored paper is out! It being published in @science.org is surreal. This was a community effort in every sense, led by an incredible team with @rosvall-lab.bsky.social @mathcancer.bsky.social @juncowren.bsky.social

🧵with the behind the scenes story of our eclipse paper!

So proud of this multidisciplinary project, showing in particular the power of community science when enabled by user-friendly design, bolstering deep expertise. In the 2024 solar eclipse, 11k observations from 1700 laypeople via a jointly developed, user-friendly smartphone app.🔭🧪

Pumped to share our work on bird behavior and the 2024 Eclipse, in today's @science.org. 100k bird vocalizations + 10k continent-wide observations from the public = really fun collab led by Liz Aguilar, with @juncowren.bsky.social @mathcancer.bsky.social @imillercrews.bsky.social #NSF

So excited to finally share our work on how birds responded to the 2024 Great American Eclipse! Thanks to @rosvall-lab.bsky.social for inviting me on this journey! I never expected any of my research to show up in @science.org, let alone on the cover. Surreal. I hope you enjoy it!

New paper out today! We found that captive female budgies show limited support for social transmission of stress, but have stronger CORT responses to the presence of human caretakers after repeated blood sampling. doi.org/10.1002/zoo....

Honored to be elected as a Fellow. The AOS has been where I felt most at home since I was an undergrad.

12 years ago today, I caught my first Steller’s Jay. They are extraordinary birds! (Captured and released safely with federal and state permits)

This morning I woke up to a drunken message from a 2023 grad telling me that every time they drink, they think about the connection between alcohol, ADH, and urination that they learned in my Endocrinology class. They apologized for being "unprofessional," but it literally made my day!

There's a new guest post on the WOS blog! Konshau Duman writes about his discovery that White-throated Sparrows regularly mimic the chip calls of Golden-crowned Sparrows, opening up new questions about whether calls are learned. #ornithology wilsonsociety.org/2025/09/26/g...

I was interviewed last week by The Scenic Route Podcast, which is hosted by Cal Klinzing, a very talented undergrad here at OWU. We discussed birds, urbanization, feral cats, and resiliency. If you want to listen, here's the Spotify link: open.spotify.com/show/63QY3iw...

One thing that keeps me going during the fall semester is listening to the Carolina Wrens singing in my suburban development. Things get so quiet after the breeding season ends, but those wrens just keep singing their little hearts out.

Still kind of in disbelief that we are regularly having debates on topics like this...

PhD position available to study the migration ecology and year-round demography of blackpoll warblers.

Must be Exam 1 day in Invertebrate Zoology!

Yesterday, I had a off day and did a poor job presenting a crucial example in Intro Bio. When class ended, I recorded a short video with a better explanation, posted it to the LMS, and emailed my students an apology + link to the video. I checked today how many had watched it. Only 3/38. #notgreat!

Wow!