Patrick Lewin

The brilliant and bizarre ways birds use their sense of smell – from natural cologne to pest control Humans and birds both have an underappreciated sense of smell.

I wrote an article for The Conversation about birds' often overlooked sense of smell. From vultures that detect gas leaks to citrus-scented seabirds - read more below:

Jacket design for Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks. It features a historic, drawn image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth, with distinctive female patterning on its left side and male on its right. Against a black background, the image and text (title and author's name) are brightly rendered in a spectrum of colours resonant of the Progress Pride Flag.

My first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press on 11 August (UK) and 8 September (US). Please help spread the word! 🙏

UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social 🏳️‍🌈📚🐵

US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social 🏳️‍⚧️ 🗃️🦋

How to make sure the nature credits you buy are real – new research Four essentials are crucial for establishing scientifically credible nature markets.

In theory, nature markets allow governments to attract more private investment and diversify funds that help restore nature. The reality is much more complicated.

New from Sophus zu Ermgassen @iccs.bsky.social in @uk.theconversation.com 👇
theconversation.com/how-to-make-...

Five rules for scientifically credible nature markets Nature Ecology & Evolution - This Perspective synthesizes insights from the past use of nature markets to identify design factors that are necessary if such markets are to achieve their...

Super honoured to have contributed to this paper, led by the brilliant Sophus zu Ermgassen! We use our experience evaluating nature markets from around the world and derive 5 'golden' rules for the design and implementation of markets that deliver scientifically-credible outcomes. 🌱

rdcu.be/eYFx8

🚨 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

Had a fab time this week at Pop Group @popgroup2026.bsky.social and stoked to have won a prize for my poster on hybridisation in island birds! 🧬🐦‍⬛🏝️ #pgg59

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

Last years field assistant holding a Manx Shearwater on the isle of Rum (under a towel), retrieving a GPS device after a bird has returned from a foraging trip!

We are looking to hire a Seabird Field Assistant for 2026 for our Manx Shearwater research project.

Please share this to anyone who'd like to get out in the field this summer and learn about biotelemetry, bird handling and research into animal behaviour.

drive.google.com/file/d/1SGZt...

I had a very enjoyable time at #ASABWinter2025 and was delighted to present a poster on my work on bird visual fields! Thanks to the organisers @asab-meetings.bsky.social for a sociable and useful few days.

PhD student @ghtrabin.bsky.social with his great poster at ASAB, all about avian visual fields! Along with @smthmpsn.bsky.social and @gayatrikumar.bsky.social, a great group of first year postgrads doing research in bird flight and vision. Give them a follow!

Helena, Joey and James holding poster prizes

Jolyon shaking Jonah’s hand

Congratulations to #ASABWinter2025 best talk winner Jonah Walker (“Multimodal signalling and mate choice across peacock spider species“) and poster winners Helena Norman, Joey Baxter and James Robertshaw 🙌🎨🏆

Dozens of people standing in the auditorium

Innes in a camo Kilt

And an especial congrats to Innes on his retirement! Jolyon had everyone stand up who worked with or had been taught by Innes - it was very touching 🥺 So many standing! #ASABWinter2025

The runner-ups of the 2025 JAB review award: Natasha Gillies and Katrina Siddiqi-Davies.

🎉 Congratulations to @tashgillies.bsky.social and @katrina-siddiqi.bsky.social, the runner-ups of the 2025 JAB review award! 🏆

Runner-up article: vist.ly/4ir7q

#ornithology #birds #award # review #samesexpartnerships #evolution

Ines in front of a slide reading „Animal Camouflage: evolutionary biology meets neuroscience, art and war“ with a chameleon

Ines in a camo Kilt in front of the podium

Starting with a public lecture by Innes Cuthill on camouflage… not only did he come dressed in camo, but a camo kilt 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 ! #ASABWinter2025

New paper out today in Ecology and Evolution! Link below. Congrats PhD student @smthmpsn.bsky.social, on your first paper. All about how wild birds learn to avoid a novel aposematic warning signal. And a nice nod to Britney Spears in the paper title.

We are happy to announce that registration for ISBE2026 is now open! We encourage you to register as soon as possible to take advantage of reduced fees and to plan your trip and accommodation in advance.

Please read the information on www.isbe2026.com before proceeding with your registration.

We are delighted to announce our upcoming LGBTQ+ seminar given by Dr Ross Brooks who will be talking about his upcoming book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life! 2nd December @ 4pm in the Life and Mind Building, open to all members of Oxford university 🥳🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
@rossb-brighton.bsky.social #QueerBiology

🦉 Ecology of Animal Migration course in Lund 🐦‍⬛
I got the chance to join this inspiring PhD course at @biologylu.bsky.social. It was very well organized with fascinating lectures, a birdful excursion to Falsterbo and fantastic people doing fantastic research! #ecology #animalmigration

YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts Studying bird migration with radar

Much enjoyed learning about how to study bird migration with radar whilst on the roof of Lund University. youtu.be/0sB5On1gLsg?...

We had a new paper out yesterday in @royalsocietypublishing.org Biology Letters. About how the cranial feathers of male Golden and Lady Amherst’s Pheasants affect their visual fields. Nice to see it picked up The New York Times and Science. Paper link below.

Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials - Nature Human Behaviour Howard-Spink et al. develop an empirically based model of orangutan diet development, which suggests that social learning is vital for orangutans to acquire varied diets.

Our New Paper is out in Nature Human Behaviour: 🚨 Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials! 🦧 www.nature.com/articles/s41.... See 🧵

Early-career ornithologists take note!! The next EOU Fledglings meeting will take place in Gdansk in March 2026. Please RT! #ornithology

Great tit

New paper out, the last one from my PhD 🎓! Age shapes behaviour, survival, and reproduction. By using longterm great tit data, we ask whether age covaries with territory quality, and if territories show spatial age structure over time: tinyurl.com/ya2xp3zc

The lighthouse at Falsterbo.

A long eared owl in the hand.

A long-tailed tit (with pure white head).

A flock of migrating red kites with one black kite tagging along.

Fantastic day trip to Falsterbo as part of the animal migration course here in Lund. Glossy ibis, rough-legged buzzard, waxwings, black kite, great grey shrike and twite amidst hundreds of finches, thrushes and wood pigeons overhead.

We’re looking for an enthusiastic #PhD candidate to explore the resilience of sea turtle populations in a changing climate, supervised by Leo Clarke and myself. Interested in sea #turtles, #marine #biology, #conservation & #fieldwork in Cape Verde. Funded by ACCE+ NERC DLA tinyurl.com/dm573yrm

Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds | PNAS Multispecies sensory networks, where different species prioritize different sensory modalities and then use heterospecific information in a likely ...

Granger et al. Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #ornithology #seabirds

🚨 2nd master’s project!
Interested in bird migration & genomics? 🧬🐦
Use whole-genome data to trace the recent colonization of Ouessant Island by Blue Tits and explore how irruptive migratory events can shape colonization dynamics. Please share! #ornithology

www.vogelwarte.ch/de/wir/mitar...

One week left on this! Good opportunity for someone interested in #behaviour, #genomics and #migration to come work will some fun seabirds and some fun people 🧬🐣🛰️

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Excited to say that I’ve been chosen as one of this year’s ED&I fellows for Oxford University’s mathematical, physical, engineering and life sciences division! Looking forward to a year of working to make it a better workplace for all ✊

www.mpls.ox.ac.uk/equality-div...

A cartoon of 2 rhinocerous beetles clashing. One beetle is saying "I'm just trying to kiss you!" and the other beetle is saying "I'm just trying to kiss you too!". Above them is text reading LGBTQ+ Journal Club in the colours of the progress pride flag.

Hello bluesky! We are an LGBTQ+ Biology Journal Club at Uni of Oxford 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️. We are interested in topics relevant to queer ecology and amplifying queer voices in academia 🪲🌱.

For those in Oxford, we meet every 2 weeks - get in touch for more details! 🥳