We have a full time permanent technician position open, specialising in fish. Based at the John Krebs Field Station out at Wytham (University of Oxford). @biology.ox.ac.uk my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Craziest bird during field work, a Wilson's storm-petrel far from its natural habitat. At first I thought "weird how that swallow is behaving like a storm-petrel!" 🤯

Many lifers have been gotten from my seat behind the sonar computer. Here's today's one! (Binoscoped quickly while collecting data)

First day in the field, sampling a new dolphin fisher interaction site in southern Brazil. Exciting to see what we'll discover!

Animals can learn by copying others, which helps them find food and survive. The Great tit, a small passerine is good at social learning. This #RSOS paper tested whether two common parasites affect how quickly the #birds could learn a new feeding task by watching others: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

🚨New PhD opportunity🚨 Understanding sheep foraging decisions under heat stress conditions Location: Adelaide University Contact: [email protected] Details: stephanleu-ecology.com/phd-opportun... Application deadline: 17 May 2026

Interested in collaborating with our lab? Why not visit? Visitors have published chapters, got new ideas and made new collaborations. At @scienceanu.bsky.social we have much to offer, including joining for cool field work and seeing great wildlife. Details here: sites.google.com/site/drfarin...

⭐Great news⭐ We have now extended the due date for the ASSAB Student Research Grants to 7th May 2026. You can find the full details and the application form to download at the ASSAB website: www.assab.org/grants-2026

🚨ABSTRACT SUBMISSION REMINDER🚨 Submissions for the 2026 ASSAB conference are still open until the 13th of March. Submit now to take part in a friendly, warm and welcoming conference for behavioural ecologists

It turns out there is order in the apparent cockie chaos! In a new paper from the Clever Cockie Research Group; @julia-penndorf.bsky.social and co-authors show how roost of wild SC-cockies exhibit linear dominance hierarchies that are stable over 3+ years. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A trio of tawny frogmouths. This pair (here with this year‘s fledgie) have slept in our (their) garden as long as we’ve been here, and I love them to bits ❤️

What a lovely start to the year! Paddled from ANU campus to an island on the lake, had a BBQ in glorious weather, found a dusky woodswallow colony and a washed up ironbark offcut, which @damienfarine.bsky.social has made into a cheeseboard (🧀 for scale).

Counting down our most popular papers of the year.. in at no. 6 is a #BiologyLetters study showing sulphur-crested #cockatoos in Sydney learned to operate public drinking fountains, using their beaks and feet to turn taps and access water: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

With this festive combination of bands we wish everyone a joyful holiday season! Let's all rest up for a refreshed start to 2026! Happy Holidays 🎁

The breeding season is in full swing! After some troubles with currawong predation, most of the groups are on their second or third nest, and all the parents are busy provisioning their young 🦗🐦 30 chicks banded so far! #superbfairywren #SFW_ANU #birds #ecology

Habitat selection during dispersal reduces the energetic cost of transport when making large displacements #ProcB #OpenAccess #Behaviour #Ecology @damienfarine.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

The latest result on dispersal in vulturine guineafowl: dispersing females selectively use roads to reduce the cost of transport when making large displacements. Out now in @royalsocietypublishing.org Proc B: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Collect giant hail for UQ science digitisation (after the storm)

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by our posters! Both sessions were very successful and we had some really interesting discussions. Always great to see so much fairywren love 🐦 #AOC2025 #SFW_ANU @sramellini.bsky.social @franhckr.bsky.social

PhD scholarship alert! Are you interested in cognitive evolution? Do you want to know how development influences cognitive traits? Do you love hanging out with birds in the forest? If the answer to these questions is yes, please apply to work with us! 1/2 🧪 www.wgtn.ac.nz/scholarships...

#AOC2025 has started! A great morning including bird walks and an interesting plenary on female colour and song. If you're keen on project updates, attend @sramellini.bsky.social's talk at 14:00 and @franhckr.bsky.social's talk at 14:45 (same session). Also, stop by our posters today and tomorrow!

Machine learning and AI tools will change how we do ecological research. But, there are major barriers to getting high-performing models. In our latest paper, we argue a need to re-think model performance by integrating it into a hypothesis testing pipeline: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Vocal convergence during formation of social relationships in vampire bats royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Even made the local news! www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG5z...

Back in Kerala to work on our Nat Geo project 🤩

Three's a crowd, so what's four choughs?

This crested pigeon clearly thinks that the bronzewings have gotten too much of the attention.

Someone is taking advantage of me taking too long to fix the roof.

Out 🌟TODAY🌟 in the #new volume of @asab.org #AnimalBehaviour, is latest #PhD chapter from the fantastic #Chun-ChiehLiao: Functionally referential communication about danger in cooperatively breeding white-winged choughs #fieldwork #experiments With #RobMagrath #RobHeinsohn doi.org/10.1016/j.an... 1/

And paper 2 is now online: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

NEW PAPER in #ornithology shows that some #raptors switched foraging strategy when #COVID19 lockdowns reduced the availability of #roadkill: buff.ly/jUug7Yj

TWO papers just out in @royalsocietypublishing.org #biologyletters : 1) Red kites switched from scavenging along roads to foraging away from roads during the COVID-19 lockdowns. 2) Fishers synchronise heart rates when cooperating with dolphins, but only when in close proximity. 1/

It's a fairly constant parade of bronzewings visiting our bird bath, and you can see where they got their name from!

Ouch! two grant rejections in < 10 hours. Just as I'm finalising two more submissions due next week. #suckerforpunishment

When your study species comes to you.

Watch until the end.

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...

Peak cockatoo breeding season! Look out for those pairs lucky enough to secure rare real estate; they should be feeding chicks now.

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...

This silly boi loves our bird bath. It sits there for ages while his mate just looks on disapprovingly..

Walking to the office is just... different here.

Social and spatial drivers of the multitiered structure of zebra finch social networks #ProcB @damienfarine.bsky.social #Behaviour #Evolution royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Very pleased to see our study that formally quantifies the society of zebra finches. They have different types of relationships, and these form tiers, but they do not form a multilevel society. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... This was a very nice collaboration with great colleagues.

A small selection of #COSMOS2025 participants hard at work on their group projects @lazytenuredprof.bsky.social @damienfarine.bsky.social @lucymaplin.bsky.social Thanks to all of the instructors for providing code/data for hands-on experience with modeling cosmossummerschool.github.io/projects/

Really cool article on the complex societies formed by vulturine guineafowl. The article has a couple of specialized terms but is pretty readable once you know those words (I had to look up philopatry for example).

Shifting the spotlight from dominance towards shared decision-making in collective groups @damienfarine.bsky.social #COSMOS2025

Want to get the low-down on vulturine guineafowl societies? Here's a summary of our knowledge so far: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Interested in vocal #communication? How animals provide referential #information about danger? Then see our 🌟NEW🌟 paper by brilliant ANU #PhD student Chun-Chieh Liao out today in @asab.org Animal Behaviour. 🎉👏 #birds #choughs #fieldwork #ECR With Rob Magrath and Rob Heinsohn doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

We're looking for a new postdoc on our new BBSCR grant (Graham Taylor/Tim Guilford/Cait Newport). See link below! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

What drives emergent leader-follower dynamics in animal groups? We integrate the process of movement initiations into the marginal value theorem, and discover that the identities of leaders can change over time. nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...