Eliot Miller

So creepy looking. Does seem like it's actually a planned city in the making. Curious how this all plays out. Anyone know anything more? gestion.pe/tu-dinero/in...

WTF is this? Giant empty planned city...

That was when I noticed this set of ghost roads along the side of the farms. So I zoomed in further.

So. I was staring at Google Maps when I noticed something weird. Extensive, very structured agriculture in the northern Peruvian desert. So I zoomed in.

Ancient DNA and spatial modeling reveal a pre-Inca trans-Andean parrot trade - Nature Communications Here, the authors combine ancient DNA, stable isotopes, and computational modeling to study colorful feathers from a pre-Incan tomb in Peru. They identify four species of parrots, which were likely ca...

🦜🏔️ How did vibrant Amazonian parrot feathers end up in a desert tomb on the Pacific coast of Peru 1,000 years ago? Our new paper on @natcomms.nature.com reveals they didn't just trade feathers, pre-Inca societies transported live macaws and parrots across the Andes!👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Such a cool area, that’s an awesome place to cut your teeth. Find the cassette!

Good news! We've added enough Pacific Hornero recordings that it should be in Merlin sound ID soonish. Keep recording though!

Saw two hornero statues, and it's on murals all around Loja (next to HOSP no less!). The disconnect b/w its ubiquity and notable absence in the model was driving me crazy.

Are you interested in complex social-ecological systems, pedagogy, sustainability education, and working with bright students and engaged faculty? I'm hiring a postdoc for a cool new initiative! More Info & Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/31747

Hi Boris! All the recordings submitted to eBird end up in Macaulay Library, where they are freely available for research, education, and conservation. From there they end up building resources like BirdNET and Merlin.

Ok. We the world are up to 125. Tomorrow I start activating collaborators here in Ecuador.

rambaut/figtree Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/figtree - rambaut/figtree

The first version of FigTree was released nearly 20 years ago and it is still widely used (including by me). But there are currently 85 issues on the GitHub repo (github.com/rambaut/figt...) and some of them I don’t really like the look of.

#notajocotoco

The local parks carry an extra large version as well

In 2006 I spent a week w Harold Greeney trying to find the first nest of the Jocotoco Antpitta. We spent 12 hrs a day swimming through soaking wet bamboo. After all that, I managed to see one's shadow for about 1/16 of a second. Flash forward to today...

Birds Aren’t Just Declining. They’re Declining Faster, a New Study Finds.

And here is some of the amazing news coverage of our paper. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/c... by @catrineinhorn.bsky.social

Pacific Hornero - eBird Thrush-sized, plump bird of open habitats, especially near water. Particularly fond of disturbed areas, often around human settlements, clearings, and roadsides. Builds an impressive dome-shaped mud nest. Rich rufous above and pale tan below, with a whiter throat and eyebrow. Look for staring pale eye. Most often seen strutting confidently on the ground, and also perches high in a tree or atop a building to sing: listen for a long, loud, descending series of explosive “pee” notes. Mostly restricted to lowlands and foothills in western Ecuador and northwestern Peru, just barely occurring in far southwestern Colombia.

This is a common bird in w Ecuador, and one that I really wish was covered by Merlin, but it's not well recorded given how common it is. We need ~150 recordings to make it eligible for the model--nice little mini-mission for the community. Currently at 118. Let's go! ebird.org/species/palh...

ML651775654 - Pacific Hornero - Macaulay Library Macaulay Library ML651775654; © Eliot Miller; Loja, Ecuador

On a mini-mission to get enough recordings of Pacific Hornero into the @cornellbirds.bsky.social's Macaulay Library that we can add it to the Merlin sound ID model. Getting after it with phones, a parabola and, most importantly, encouraging others to do the same! macaulaylibrary.org/asset/651775...

the most important question of presidents day is what did they think about birds and luckily for you chumps i've got answers
birdhistory.substack.com/p/our-birdy-...

Getting ready for a really cool community-led monitoring project in shade-grown coffee and cacao farms in Ecuador and Mexico. Quick stop in #ICTC2026 first! #BirdsPlusIndex @abcbirds.bsky.social @wildlifeacoustics.com

Have you ever seen Blue Jays flighting with Crows and be like, I need to record this on eBird? Your comment could help with tracking species interactions! In this piece, we show how LLMs can be used to collect interaction data on large scales from comments on participatory science platforms. 1/3

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

xkcd.com/3204/

why do males defend territories in some species while pairs or family groups defend territories in others?

then-undergrad Shreyas Arashanapalli did a fantastic project to find out, analyzing 3177 playback experiments on 264 species

the best predictor?

latitude

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Birds of World's new Phylogeny Explorer It’s been an exciting week. Five years in the making, we’re very excited to release this new, updated, dynamic phylogeny of the world’s birds. By harnessing Open Tree of Life ’s existing...

Taxonomy and phylogeny are two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they are always in agreement. I wrote a blog post on why the new Phylogeny Explorer in @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social is such a big deal in that regard, and what's in store next for us.

eliotmiller.weebly.com/blog/birds-o...

If you thought regular bird listing was for nerds, wait til you get a load of phylolisting. @snacktavish.bsky.social

I've seen most of the taxonomic orders of birds out there, but I'm still missing three: kiwis, cuckoo-roller, and cariamas. Any of you all ticked all of them yet? #birds #birding

One of my favorite things in life is admiring the emergent structures of different tree species in winter

Me and Jesus, Julio, and Bobby. What a way to start your day…yo it’s like 1, 2, 3…

Sad twist of fate that I spend many dozens of hours a year processing venison so that my family can eat clean, local meat and somehow I end up basically subsisting on leftover chicken nuggets I find on the couch.

Maybe we can find a way to link up! Let’s chat in January. We’ll probably be doing another survey starting in May.

Listening in on the Birds of New York City - American Bird Conservancy Learn how American Bird Conservancy’s BirdsPlus Index uses bird song and calls to measure the impact of habitat restoration efforts in New York Harbor.

Hmm, try this: abcbirds.org/news/birdspl...