David Tan

Volunteers needed to help map Britain's winter birds The BTO has launched a UK-wide Winter Bird Survey to improve understanding of wintering bird populations in habitats such as farmland and woodland. Building on earlier work, the project aims to assess population changes and the impact of agri-environment schemes, reports BirdGuides. Birders across the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man are invited to take part in this important citizen-science initiative.

Birders across the UK are being encouraged to take part in the BTO's new Winter Bird Survey, designed to provide a clearer picture of how the nation's birds are faring outside the breeding season:

Derpy mottle chested dark grey and white bird perched on a twig with two outrageous epaulette / armpit flanges of bright pinky purple

I’m especially keen to showcase purpletufts, one of the grooviest and most underrated mistletoe specialist frugivores (sister to Tityras and becards)
(pic by Jesus Alferez)

Now published in Cell! We found that ~15% of SNPs from divergent refs did not liftover as SNPs in the gray fox ref—half mapped to monomorphic sites, half failed to map. Co-authored with Matthew Genchev, @elliecat.bsky.social, and @jazlynmooney.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Golden eagle on the nest in Finland (by O. Karlin)

🦅PhD position 🦅 in my new group at @fbm-unil.bsky.social in Switzerland, studying how the social and resource landscapes shape the learning process for soaring flight. Deadline: Oct 30. Pls repost! career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Happy Rexaversary!

No, but they scolded me for buying mooncakes at full price (she made hers by hand), but later relented and said "buying at full price is okay if it's for friends"

I'm at the IKEA (again) and something about this picture was bugging the heck out of me, and then I realised it's because none of the beansprouts had their roots removed.

Are Europeans not brought up in the rich tradition of removing beansprout tails before cooking?

Analysis of communication and collective behavior in animal groups

⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...

Indigenous-led protections spark Bali starling’s recovery in the wild NUSA PENIDA, Indonesia — Two young conservation workers rattle up on a motorbike and dismount at the edge of a coconut grove. Picking through husks, fallen fronds and stray plastic bottles, they scan…

An Indonesian songbird once nearly extinct in the wild, the Bali starling, is making a comeback through community-led conservation.

Villages embraced traditional awig-awig regulations to protect the starling, creating powerful cultural, social and financial deterrents to poaching.

Brought fried rice and mooncakes to a friend's birthday potluck last night and was extremely pleased to see that I wasn't the only Chinese person at the party who brought the exact same combination of dishes.

No Consistent Effect of Migration on Speciation Rates in Two Avian Superfamilies: A Check on the Robustness of Trait-Dependent Diversification Methods https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41042249/

Do I know anyone at Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales?

A great thread dismantling the latest 'conservation populism' to be floated in Britain. With funding available for species recovery, this is business for some. We'll see more of this pitching for commercial projects that scientists & species experts think is useless. #ornithology #ukbirding

Multi-generational vulture nests hold 700 years of human artifacts Crossbow bolts, sandals, slingshots, and more.

super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉

🚨 Master’s project!
Curious how birds find their way? 🧭🐦
Analyze decades of ringing data to study abnormal migratory routes and uncover what these deviations can reveal about the mechanisms guiding birds on their journeys. Drop me an email for details! #ornithology

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

3rd anniversary of this paper: Karwinkel et al. 2022 "A magnetic pulse does not affect free-flight navigation behaviour of a medium-distance songbird migrant in spring" in JEB, where we tried to reproduce old studies on magnetoreception, but found no effects. A thread:
doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Bird conservation threatened by shifting baseline syndrome New research shows that populations of dozens of waterbird and seabird species have been declining for much longer than previously thought in Europe. The article "Shifting the baseline for waterbird a...

If conservationists work from a compromised baseline, our notions of abundance, scarcity, and ecological wellbeing will keep getting defined downward:
"The researchers show that using the 1970s as a baseline tends to normalize an already severely degraded state."
phys.org/news/2025-10...

China Rolls Out Its First Talent Visa as the US Retreats on H-1Bs The Chinese government unveiled a program to woo foreign talent just as the US cracked down on H-1Bs with a $100,000 fee. The move immediately provoked xenophobic backlash.

TIRED: The US is purging H-1B workers.
WIRED: China is rolling out its K visa to recruit foreign science and tech talents.
EXPIRED: It's causing a wave of racist and xenophobic backlash inside China as well. 😬

Boston Kreme doughnuts on sale at a Kaufland Supermarket in Germany

I'm not sure I miss Dunkin's *that* much...

‘Thrilled’ Indonesian scientists celebrate return of fossil trove from the Netherlands The items to be returned, which include Java Man, were collected during the colonial era

A collection of fossils that helped change our understanding of humanity’s origins is itself going back to its origin. https://scim.ag/4mHHVUM

Just published: Conservation genomics of two
endangered buntings reveal genetic diversity
before and after severe population declines. doi.org/10.1186/s129... Despite severe population declines, both species retained high genetic diversity but experienced increased inbreeding. #ornithology #birds

Characterising a species-rich and understudied tropical insect fauna using DNA barcoding Background: West Africa has high biodiversity that is relatively understudied, especially for insects. Studies of West African arthropod diversity can therefore help address important questions regard...

New preprint alert! We DNA barcoded 95 thousand Ghanaian arthropods, more than doubling the number of BINs (a species proxy) available online from West Africa. In doing so we’ve released a huge amount of new data to scientists studying the region 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Weir Lab at the University of Toronto seeks PhD students for Fall 2026 to study avian genomics and speciation. Competitive funding, diverse training, and a collaborative environment are offered. Apply: jason.weir@utoronto.ca. More info: https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~jweir/index.html #phd

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91 Jane Goodall Institute says ‘tireless advocate’ for natural world died in California during US speaking tour The world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91, her institute has said. The Jane Goodall Institute announced that she had passed away of natural causes while in California as part of a US speaking tour. Continue reading...

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91

Interested in the analysis on Transposable elements? 🧬
Have a look at our course with @valentinapeona.bsky.social & @ritarebollo.bsky.social

We'll cover everything from TE biology to de novo library construction, quantification, & transcriptomic analysis.

www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

I love how, to German HR staff, it makes perfect sense to say "we'll pre-pay your September salary sometime around mid-October". Truly blessed to live with people who don't experience time in linear fashion.

🌍📢 Postdoc alert | 3-yr starting 1/1/26

Understand how ecosystem stability is changing across space and through time using niche modelling, pinpoint at-risk species/regions, and build tools that drive conservation action🌿🧭📈

👉 tinyurl.com/2w2we5z8

#Ecology #Jobs #Biodiversity #RStats

An Aquatic Warbler from Western Pomerania, Poland, a previously nearly extinct population that is now under restoration. Photo: J. Kubacka

Temporal changes in the effective population size of two Aquatic Warbler populations: a large core metapopulation, represented by the Biebrza Valley subpopulation (sampled in 2018), and a small westernmost declining population, West Pomerania (sampled in 1999). The analysis was run with the GONE software.

The current effective population sizes in the three populations sampled.

Long runs of homozygosity (>1Mb) in the three sampled populations: Biebrza in 1997; Biebrza in 2018; and West Pomerania in 1999. Long ROHs are indicative of recent inbreeding.

My WGS🧬project on Aquatic Warbler shows:
👉 Recent genetic bottleneck and low diversity
👉 Elevated inbreeding in declining westernmost population
👉 Growing inbreeding in core population
@biogeneurope.bsky.social @sib.swiss @ergabiodiv.bsky.social @otop-birdlife.bsky.social @peenefvp.bsky.social

30 September// 1 October