Will Smith

Are there still “pure” Hawaiian Ducks? Recent study explored the genetics of this species across the Hawaiian Islands.

Your daily Avian Hybrids story!

Are there still “pure” Hawaiian Ducks?
avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2020/03/18/a...

#ornithology

Very excited to announce my first paper!
With @sjportugal.bsky.social, published in @ecol-evol.bsky.social 🧪🌍

We studied how flocks of homing pigeons change their flight in response to different ground cover, with some surprising results...

doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

#movementecology #ornithology

congrats!!!

High prevalence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria in faecal samples from UK passerine birds Scientific Reports - High prevalence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria in faecal samples from UK passerine birds

New paper: rdcu.be/eyR0w

Great to see this one out, concerning findings but a lot more to understand about the ecology and transmission of AMR bacteria in wild bird populations and at bird feeders #ornithology 🧪

Tourist discovers ‘extinct’ jellyfish while rock-pooling in Outer Hebrides Thistle-shaped Depastrum cyathiforme was last seen in France in 1976, but has now been found on South Uist

Lovely story from the brilliant @britishwildlife.bsky.social magazine. This mag is endlessly fascinating – recommend if you're not a subscriber already. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

New issue of #BirdStudy published today:
www.tandfonline.com/toc/tbis20/7...
UK Hen Harrier census
Capercaillie vocal ID
Barn Owls and agri-environment schemes
Bird trends in Faroes, and Iceland
Dunlin morphometrics
Sparrowhawk breeding habitat
Rock Partridge nest predation
#ornithology

ooooooh have fun !😁

The most amazing parents a bird can ask for. Another field season is done - another year of watching flycatchers working endlessly to give these angry fluffballs as much care as possible 🤍🖤 thank you @deryktolman.bsky.social for the beautiful pictures!

Great weekend at @ccbowarden.bsky.social for the Lavender Festival. Ringing Demo with a good mix of passerines, 163 Stormies caught at night inc 3 controls (1 we caught at Galley Head on Wednesday night) and 20 Rock Doves for RAS project inc 9 new! @btobirds.bsky.social @willjsmith.bsky.social

🥳

Goosander (Common Merganser) Frank Schulenburg via wiki commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Common_merganser_landing_on_Lake_Siskiyou-2037.jpg

New in #BirdStudy

Goosanders were tracked using GPS tags: results showed their ranging behaviour on 2 Scottish rivers.
Authors from @btoscotland.bsky.social & @ukceh.bsky.social

Tracking of Goosanders Mergus merganser in Scotland (Wetherhill et al): doi.org/10.1080/0006...
#ornithology #ukbirding

Michal Jezierski speaking

#BESMacro2025 Michal Jezierski on the island syndrome (and opening with a joke!)

The breeding season is now in full swing around Helsinki, with long days out in the reedbeds trying to better understand behavioural evolution in this species 🔬

Two months back I had the honour to visit UC Davis (kindly hosted by @katelaskowski.bsky.social) to give a Storer Lecture on the power of long-term studies of individuals in ecology & evolution. Great people doing great science despite the current climate. Video ⬇️

video.ucdavis.edu/media/The+Po...

Islands Promote Diversification of the Silvereye Species Complex: A Phylogenomic Analysis of a Great Speciator Geographic isolation plays a pivotal role in speciation by restricting gene flow between populations through distance or physical barriers. However, the speciation process is complex, influenced by t...

Excited to share our new paper in Molecular Ecology! Using whole-genome and morphological data from silvereyes, we explore their evolutionary history and find that water barriers are more effective than continental distances in driving population divergence 🐤🧬
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Fancy a postdoc?

Congratulations Denise on a great DPhil journey!

The first wave of reed warbler eggs is finally upon us in Finland, the northern edge of their range🥚🪹🇫🇮

Delighted for wren researcher Michał @jezierskimt.bsky.social yesterday finding St Kilda's 9th Rustic Bunting, and first in 25 years!
Amazing to see this eastern vagrant hopping about in the Village sunshine.
@hebridesbirds.bsky.social
@birdguides.bsky.social
@scottishbirding.bsky.social

We've just had a brief visit to Uist to check in on the Rock Dove study population. A few (cute?) squabs ringed, and a nice selection of adults re-encountered through colour ring sightings. They seem to be having a good breeding season this spring 🐦🧬 @jezierskimt.bsky.social

Wild house mice have a more dynamic and aerotolerant gut microbiota than laboratory mice - BMC Microbiology The mammalian gut microbiota is a complex microbial community with diverse impacts on host biology. House mice (Mus musculus) are the major model organism for research on mammals, but laboratory domes...

We compared gut microbiota across >800 lab and wild house mice. Wild mice have more diverse, aerotolerant, and dynamic microbiotas than their lab counterparts. See our latest paper here: bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... #gutmicrobiome #musmusculus #wildmice

Three homing pigeons sitting on a shelf at the front of a loft, with a fourth pigeon clambering on the loft's door.

1/6 #BOU2025

Despite the prevalence of bird flock research, many questions remain as to what drives changes in the flight behaviour of cluster flocks.
@sjportugal.bsky.social and I addressed some of these using flights of homing pigeons.

#ornithology #animalbehavior #animalmovement #biologging

This March, we've ringed the 1000th Rock Dove since @jezierskimt.bsky.social and I began monitoring them in Uist in July 2019. We also re-captured a (now a bit elderly, but thriving) dove first ringed during that trip. Lots of great data collected on overwinter survival and individual condition. 🕊️🪶

Congrats! 🥳

The genomic legacy of aurochs hybridisation in ancient and modern Iberian cattle After their introduction to the Iberian peninsula, domestic cattle hybridised with mostly male wild aurochs for millennia until human actions likely ended this process about 4000 years ago.

Last week, @elife.bsky.social posted the version of record of our #aDNA study on Iberian aurochs/cattle.

We found a lot of hybridization, probably sex-biased, stabilizing at ~20% about 4000 years ago (co-author Colin Smith coined the term 'cowrochs').

Read more: elifesciences.org/articles/93076

This is the dream 😍

Our new @adriftlab.bsky.social paper is out, lead by @alixdejersey.bsky.social showing the insidious impacts of plastics on seemingly health birds (1/5)

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sometimes a pigeon isn't actually a pigeon:

Studies of domestic pigeons have taught us lots about cognition, navigation, and genetics. If you’d like to learn why their wild cousins are also worthy of scientific attention, I’ve written a Rock Dove @currentbiology.bsky.social ‘quick guide’: doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.065

p.s. feel free to reach out if you need help accessing it :)