An ornithologist and evolutionary biologist who studies seabirds, Dr. Taylor has no formal training in public health. But their papers have included the word 'population', which is also a word used in talking about public health, and thus the C.D.C.

l m a o

Awesome! "Embryology reveals a morphological signature of ancestral diurnality maintained in a nocturnal lineage" By Griffing et al. in @journal-evo.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/evol... (Are there any similar analyses for Nocturnal Caprimulgiformes -> Diurnal Apodidae / Trochilidae ? )

to correct the record this is a pretty dumb, probably factually incorrect, (and anyways meaningless) comparison, but what I hope to imply is that insofar as one can consider shooting a Slaty-backed Gull to protect a Common Murre, one can also consider feeding a Common Murre to a Slaty-backed Gull 😅😇

this is a subtweet that won't make sense to anyone but I'm pretty sure that the number of Common Murres that die from *oiling* in *Canada alone* is greater than the *world population* of Slaty-backed Gulls

Oxford friends! I'm giving the @egioxford.bsky.social seminar on Friday. Pop along! egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/event/adrift...

Are Great Tits becoming Not So-Great Tits? New preprint from @davididiaquez.bsky.social et al. documenting decline in mass of adult Great Tits in @wythamwoods.bsky.social of ~1 s.d. over 47 years - results from carry-over effect of increased population density during the nestling period. Thread ⬇️

#Phylogenetics slides - still wonder if my students will get this right on the exam

Whether you are interested in birds or not, I encourage you to read this eBird checklist by Brian Holbrook, whoever that may be. ebird.org/checklist/S2... No spoilers but trailer screenshot included

Mike Coston: afludiary.blogspot.com/2026/02/natu...

time-traveling (late) post visiting from August 2025!

every time someone says "stochastic parrot" I want to be like NO!!! not to defend AI but to defend parrots, which are subtle and sick and full of joie de vivre

I am elated & humbled that my upcoming monograph (mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282...) was chosen as one of the #openaccess titles for Spring 2026. Thanks to @mitpress.bsky.social's Direct to Open (D2O) model & the hundreds of participating libraries that make it possible! #philsky #HPS #evosky #HPbio

you ever literally sweep everything under a rug? makes everything so easy

Starting Absolution by @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social and I genuinely cannot believe I like it as much or better than the first three -- had resisted starting because the ending of Acceptance left such an impression but wow worth it! Especially if you've done field biology 🐊

Accepted at Animal Behaviour! "Permanent and temporary mate-switching in a long-lived seabird: Insights from a 64-year study." Kent Island's storm-petrel dataset gives some nice detail on how these birds spend years together, break up, and even get back together. Led by @ingridpollet.bsky.social !

pitch: eco/evo job board without the Notes columns

i'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion that we put the wrong guys in charge of telling us about the biology of group social behavior :) :) :) :)

Sifting through Animal Behavior Society newsletters and came across a castigation of the field made by Dutch ethologist Adriaan Kortlandt in 1990. He states, "Ethology is supposed to be the study of behaviour, but the behaviour has become invisible." He also used to fight goats during lectures.

reading about organisms that aren’t your specialty is like margins of the quorbus eplungulate, ploobular processes bent posteriorly towards the foobulum define term “eplungulate” - lacking plungae. synonym: thubulous

Like I always say, "RTI&W&WABTW&IYTSTRHWACWCYANGAYJ" (Robert Trivers Is & Was & Will Always Be The Worst & If You Tell Students To Read His Work About Conflict Without Context You Are Not Good At Your Job)

Excited that our paper is headed for publication at Animal Behaviour! - "Experimental study of social signaling through delayed plumage maturation in a colony-nesting seabird." Our experiments show how the unusual, brown plumages of young seabirds can help reduce aggression at the breeding colony.

Stay classy Richard

Very cool new exhibits at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History featuring some cool dinosaurs, including Archaeopteryx and Dodos, as well as learning lessons about extinction.

Our lab will be boycotting biotech vendors that have contracts with ICE (e.g., Fisher, Agilent), and telling them why. If you google “vendorname usa spending”, you can see purchases for specific depts including ICE on usaspending.gov. Please talk to your labs and email your vendors!

R.I.P. Catherine O’Hara. Absolute icon.🥺🥀

If I quit academia who will tell the people all this important stuff I just made up?

All I've ever wanted is a social media platform that's small voice memos, so I can tell my important stories, such as for example how today I reached into all my separate pockets and there was fruit in every one

like a mother running down the list of her childrens' names before reaching the correct one, I search through my dual authentication apps

love this one

Wildlife conservation is good for the climate. So why are animals so often left out of climate policy discussions? therevelator.org/animals-clim...

Evolution of manakin plumage maturation now out early look @sse-evolution.bsky.social (Phylo-)Devo-evo, plumage, and social signaling Bonkers system that reshaped how I think about both development and evolution. doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Adding “No problem if not” to my email signature

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Good bird cool

Dear @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social Cornell Lab of O, your new phylogeny viewer is AWESOME and exactly what I wanted for years and will be an AMAZING resource for classes BUT you use an automatic thumbnail from the first image for each group may we crowdsource better representative species lol

In 2019 I was having a conversation about some science nonsense at the greatest brunch place in New Haven, CT (The Pantry). A precious young Yalie leaned over from the next table and said, "I think it's actually pronounced YEW-LAR" I said "oh, ok, thanks" I wonder if he thinks about that, too

We got it (pretty much) through! Heh

I have the sneaking suspicion that future historians of biology will look back on the framing of *history* as a *constraint* and they will simply think us very weird

I'm not particularly femme presenting most days, just due to constraints on time and attention and *gestures around*, but it's striking that the more I lean towards it, the more out of the way random dudes go to affirm masculinity "hey thanks MAN!" "Right on dude!" Goofy sometimes, for sure

A new editorial of mine in Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment , about the value of spending time with people on their land when doing ecology. 🌎🌿🦤 Walking the land with property owners Tom A Langen, Catherine Benson, Rick Welsh esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Literally the first news outlet I've seen directly quoting her wife. Even the NPR piece on Renee Good that aired this morning made no mention of Becca Good whatsoever.

the ___ problem the ___ problem 🙄🙄🙄🙄

I hate to give the West Coast any edge over my beloved home, but Chestnut-backed Chickadees are damn cute

please google Lesser Florican Sypheotides indicus

old godwit photo from one of my favorite field techin times. Look at that feather wear!! great birds up there but job did give me legitimate phobia of bears.

The more I engage with academia, the more I think about myself. My ambition, my legacy, my nemeses and papers and hopes and plans and ideas. It's exhausting and miserable and cowardly

I am very excited to share our new paper with my amazing co-authors and mentors @dmacguig.bsky.social @fishgenomes.bsky.social @tjnear.bsky.social . We investigate a secondary contact zone in #darters. track.smtpsendmail.com/9032119/c?p=...

sex is about as essential as Richard Dawkins is to evolutionary biology - which is to say, not essential 💜