Valentijn S. van Bergen

‘We thought they would ignore us’: how humans are changing the way raptors behave Experts call for tighter regulation as GPS tracking reveals how people’s behaviour affects the lives of some of the world’s largest birds

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I just thought everyone should see this

Maybe Greenland could invade us instead?

🚨 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

Happy to share our new paper published in @cp-iscience.bsky.social We deployed 300+ multi-sensor loggers across 17 species to investigate how different species adapt their flight strategies when crossing deserts and marine areas during migration. tinyurl.com/2c8y8xvf #ornithology #birds

Winter means.. communal roosts! 🦅🐦🦜

But why do birds form such roosts? In red kites, young single males are the most frequent visitors. Once paired, birds roost more solitarily, often together as a pair.

📢 Now online: tinyurl.tools/98e9279e

@animalecology.bsky.social
@vogelwarte.bsky.social

Happy to have contributed to a new paper on the wonderful Yelkouan shearwaters, highlighting just how vulnerable this species is to human-driven threats 🌊

Hey don't cry... 60 million icefish nests in a colony twice the size of Paris discovered in the Weddell Sea in 2021 ok???

Absolute dream job..

There's house painting & then there's house painting...
(the eye of the Bonelli's is perfect). #Art #Streetart
@iand777.bsky.social @alexanderlees.bsky.social @markbirdingpinoso.bsky.social @laffingkat.bsky.social @pitcarity.bsky.social @brigitstrawbridge.bsky.social #birds 🪶

NEW PAPER in #ornithology and #conservation reviews the marine threats to #seabirds and other marine #megafauna and confirms that #fisheries are a severe problem: buff.ly/5SXNdqr

Very happy to finally have this out! 🎉 A review of the diets of European insectivorous birds. Huge thanks to Klaus Birkhofer, @johanekroos.bsky.social, @henrikgsmith.bsky.social and all co-authors! 🙏 #ornithology @biologylu.bsky.social @vogelwarte.bsky.social @helsinki.fi doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

Our team analysed the correlation of N deposition with numbers of territories of 112 Swiss breeding birds species. Insectivous and herbivorous species were more negatively associated with N deposistion, as well as ground-nesting species. Read more here: doi.org/10.1111/cobi...

Incredible footage of Goshawk predating Hobby chick. Will likely return 😬 - watch live here: www.youtube.com/live/MJaRwj4... #birds #ukbirds #ornithology Web cam by the amazing Wildlife Windows www.wildlifewindows.co.uk

Yesterday a game keeper asked me to safe a young kite that was stuck up a tree. It had one claw entangled in plastic. In eight years of ringing 1200 kites, I’ve seen every year chicks with ligaments entangled. Some 1-2 % already dies in the nest due to plastic. This one was ‘lucky’ to have fledged.

Seed predation by rodents suppresses recruitment of a bird-dispersed tree at its upper range limit | Journal of Animal Ecology | besjournals.onlineli... | #ornithology 🪶🌍🧪

Spent a week in and around the forests with a nearly invisible beauty of a honey buzzards nest in a silver fir as the highlight of the week. These birds (and their social wasps) seem to have quite a good year.

Over the past 10 years I’ve climbed and controlled some 1000 red kite nests. Here a nest with two chicks that had an apple for lunch. Nutrient wise a useless prey but these birds bring all kinds of human refuse on their nests.

Somehow silly to endlessly keep debating about the basic consensus that the climate is warming due to human caused greenhouse gas emissions. Anyway, quite an insightful 🧵 here.

Could you add me too?

Georgia: raptor rapture Ian Lycett reports back from a memorable few days birding at Batumi, Georgia, in September 2024, where tens of thousands of birds of prey filled the skies. Species seen included European Honey Buzzard, Black Kite, Pallid Harrier and Black Stork.

Raptor rapture in Georgia

Ian Lycett discusses a memorable few days at Batumi in September 2024, where tens of thousands of birds of prey filled the skies:

A reminder to keep fighting for a better world. A healthy, inclusive environment doesn’t come for granted. Not even a million Nobel prizes are worth to maintain a toxic system.

Call for Counters!

Join BRC in autumn 2025 to witness the magnificent migration of >1 million raptors, improve your ID skills, and contribute to population monitoring! Fees: €10-24/day with discounts available!

Read more & apply here: www.batumiraptorcount.org/volunteer-as-raptor-migration-counter

Drivers of nest site selection and breeding success in an Alpine ground-nesting songbird - Journal of Ornithology Birds breeding in high-Alpine habitats must select a suitable breeding site and achieve successful reproduction within a restricted time. During four breeding seasons, we monitored nest sites of the N...

How do ecological factors influence site selection in a Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) population in the Swiss Alps? Y. Rime et al. found that birds were attentive to exposure, slope inclination, and the presence of rockpiles. More on doi.org/10.1007/s103... #ornithology

The threat of illegal hunting to raptors migrating through Batumi: bou.org.uk/blog-dane...

Read all about it on #theBOUblog by Mitra in both English and Farsi!

این بلاگ به زبان فارسی هم در دسترس است ببینید
bou.org.uk/blog/extr...

@batumiraptorcount.org | #ornithology

Observing nests with camera's yields quite some fascinating by-catch. Here we see a wood mouse - Apodemus sp. on a nest in a tree crown at 22m. After the birds fledged, this mouse visited it almost every night. It shows that the used habitat of this animal doesn't just consist of the forest floor.

For my Dutch friends: De landelijke roofvogel dag is aanstaande 22 februari in schouwburg Ogterop. Vrije inloop op een dag vol roofvogel onderzoek en verhalen. Zie hier het programma: www.werkgroeproofvogels.nl/index.php/la...

Designed this tool some years ago with Lara gross. It only works if you have some locations in your project over the past month. It saved me many hours checking hundreds of GPS tagged red kites on almost a daily base over the years.

Zo hé! 14 stuks?

🚨😷🧪 NEW: A growing body of evidence shows that pandemics, biodiversity loss, and climate change are part of a broader polycrisis - but there are no simple solutions. A sweeping overview of "Pathogens and planetary change" for the first issue of @natrevbiodiv.bsky.social, out now 🔓 rdcu.be/d6lHl