Dustin Reichard

Hadn't seen that one yet. That's bleak. I guess we're at the point where we need to question whether online/fully remote courses are even an option? Obviously there are ways to try and enforce honesty, but this arms race is soul crushing.

Field job in the beautiful mountains of NE Oregon doing passive acoustic monitoring and woodpecker demography just went live. Please share!

jobs.rwfm.tamu.edu/view-job/?id...

Hiring for 3 positions: Research Assistant, Field Research Coordinator, and Postdoc I am looking to hire 3 people into my lab this year. I am still doing the paperwork to get the jobs officially posted but I want to send the word out and screen potential applications right away. R…

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

Very nice study! It's fascinating how little overlap there is in amplitude between the distant and close countersinging. I think song sparrows were similar with their soft v. broadcast song. It really suggests that the intended receiver is the nearby bird, not everyone else in the community.

Image of the title and abstract of our new paper, with a cartoon Ovenbird superimposed. The title of the paper is: Hushed disputes between noisy neighbours: ovenbirds vary song amplitude during conflicts with territorial rivals.

Our new paper is out today in Animal Behaviour: "Hushed disputes between noisy neighbours: Ovenbirds vary song amplitude during conflicts with territorial rivals." By Connor Acorn, Jenn Foote, & me. @animbehsociety.bsky.social

How loud is an Ovenbird's song? It depends...
🧵1

Students are always surprised/confused to learn that roadrunners are in the same taxonomic order as cuckoos (Cuculiformes). Until I saw this video, I never gave much though to how similar their vocalizations could be.

We (as a society) are good and truly f*cked

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

The Birdsong Lab is recruiting graduate students to study vocal communication in tropical birds. The deadline to apply is less than a week away! #birds #birdsong #ornithology #animalbehavior #BirdsCanada #AcademicSky #SciComm

Can confirm it's possible to fully unplug from Amazon Prime. We did last year and ended up spending a large portion of those recaptured dollars at local small businesses. But, change is hard, goods are more expensive than ever, and Amazon remains the fastest, cheapest option for too much.

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics?
1) Write NSF
2) Write your Congressperson
3) CC us at grfp@grant-witness.us so we can compile + follow up

Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

Looks like an amazing tool, especially for those of us teaching Ornithology, Evolution, etc. Also, just fun to cruise around and learn about new birds and taxonomic relationships.

Oxygen-free metabolism in the bird inner retina supported by the pecten - Nature While the photoreceptor outer segments in the bird outer retina have access to oxygen, the inner retina operates under chronic anoxia, supported by anaerobic glycolysis in the retinal neurons.

Wow! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I first learned about the misleading scale of the Mercator projection in college geography and was astounded. So much of what I thought I knew about the world had to be reevaluated. I think about that moment often.

The Birdsong Lab is recruiting graduate students! Links in the comments. Please repost!

I finally broke down and asked for a @birdfybynetvue.bsky.social feeder for Christmas. So glad that I did! It’s been fun watching the usual suspects, but yesterday I would’ve totally missed this relative rarity without it. Enjoy the red-breasted nuthatch!

I would not be the scientist I am today without Ellen's mentorship. She is proof that you can be kind, supportive, and compassionate while still achieving success at the highest level. She always reminded me to try the carrot, not just the stick. The world needs more people like Ellen.

Tiktaalik slugs its way over a muddy bank in a flooded Devonian landscape while the sun sets over the horizon. Banks of pink and purple clouds loom in front of distant streaks of orange as clear turquoise sky peeks through cloudless regions. Various trees and shrubs stand tall above purple water glistening with gold wavelets. With vision that could probably see in the UV spectrum and eyes beginning to adapt for the infinite visual range provided in aerial habitats, Titaalik pauses to take this all in, being among the first animals that can see the natural world in such detail. All which is to say - the next time you admire sunsets or the night sky, consider what this owes to events of 375 million years ago. When the first vertebrates struggled out of the water they rapidly developed eyes that were much sharper and clearer than those of their fishy ancestors, vision being of variable utility in most freshwater habitats. Millions of years on, what probably started as a means to navigate and find prey allows us to observe and enjoy the natural world with a sense of awe and wonder.

New #paleoart on #FossilFriday: #Tiktaalik sees the world. Discussions of early #tetrapods often focus on limbs and lungs, but major changes also took place in their eyes. Seeing further and clearer than any animal before, they were the first to clearly see sunsets, stars, and the moon. #sciart

An oil painting of a Carolina Wren. The wren's feathers are fluffed up into a round shape, and it is sitting on a rock, with strong sunlight illuminating it. The artist watermark reads: copyright 2025 Jennifer Miller "Nambroth" featherdust dot com

"Morning Light on a Carolina Wren" 5" x 7" Oil on panel

I just think they're neat

A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

Depictions of evolution where a phylogeny often has humans on the far right or top can give an impression of evolution being progressive of leading to ‘increased complexity’ when it does not. Top figure shows such a phylogeny which can look the same as ‘the March of progress’ depiction most commonly used to depict evolution (showing monkey to man erroneous march of evolution) - instead swiveling some nodes on a phylogeny where humans are shown closer to the center (which doesn’t change relationships) can lead to better ‘tree thinking’

New post by me on #MITPressReader @mitpress.bsky.social

On the 100th anniversary of the #ScopesMonkeyTrial
the ways we depict #evolution can still give an erroneous progressive view (that evolution leads to humans or ‘increased complexity’).

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/is-our-pictu...

Postdoc position in individual-level incentives, social
learning, and payoff-biased imitation shape group-level accuracy in complex prediction and decision-making tasks in Konstanz

files.newsletter2go.com/l3slzozn/s_i...

Everyone should check out the recently updated CDC webpage on Vaccines and Autism. It's now loaded with blatant anti-vax misinformation. Infuriating, but also totally unsurprising considering who it in charge.
www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safe...

Seeking Advice: My department needs to order new chest waders. We're looking for cost-effective, reliable, and long lasting ones (hah!). Even advice for those to avoid would be helpful! We currently use Cabela's waders, but online reviews suggest they have gone downhill...thanks!

Seeking Advice: My department needs to order new chest waders. We're looking for cost-effective, reliable, and long lasting ones (hah!). Even advice for those to avoid would be helpful! We currently use Cabela's waders, but online reviews suggest they have gone downhill...thanks!

Meme based on split scene from one of the Star Wars films. I don't know which one. Top panel: "If I'm a great teacher I'll be sure to land a faculty position". Lower panel "That's not how higher education works".

Things I wish I'd known as a junior academic #37

Anyone know if any good apps for estimating surface area? (Or maybe manual/imageJ are the best alternatives?)

We're measuring surface area of bird wings tomorrow with grid paper but I'm hoping to improve the class in the future!

Making students do The Wave to explain how action potentials travel along a neuron is one of my favorite parts of teaching Intro Bio II.

One of the best teaching evals I've received was "I will never forget that I am a voltage-gated sodium channel."

Thanks for this! I will totally use it in a few weeks. Perfect.

Wow! Definitely worth a look for those of us teaching and doing research on stress.