Rowan Kuminski

Small spaniel puppy with black ears, brown face, and whire body with grey speckling on his head, sleeping on a blanket draped over a person's legs, sitting on a blue couch. In the background is a white door and radiator along a soft white wall

Been playing random playlists/videos for Ebro over the weeks, and have found that his favourite things to settle down and listen to are Bella Ciao and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, so I'm really liking the personality he's developing 😂💙

Why is it that people think seabird science list serves are the best outlet to voice how opposed they are to initiatives making ornithology more inclusive? So tired of receiving insensitive mass emails from people blind with rage over changing bird/place names with colonial legacies

10 week old puppy laying on its side looking at the camera while chewing on a puffin toy about his same size. Puppy is mostly white with brown speckling on his face and feet and black ears. He is laying on a wooden floor with puppy pads on it

Got Ebro a #seabird toy so we can share a common interest 🐧

Graphic displays a Black Guillemot photographed by Edmund Fellowes/BTO with a thought bubble extending from its head and the internal text 'Just one month to submit your breeding seabird data to the SMP!'. The SMP logo is positioned in the top left hand corner. The caption reads: 'Yes, that's right! You have until October 31st to submit your breeding seabird data to the SMP so that it can be utilised in understanding how species have faired this year! #seabirds'

Yes, that's right!
You have until October 31st to submit your breeding seabird data to the SMP so that it can be utilised in understanding how species have faired this year! #seabirds @btobirds.bsky.social @jncc.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social

Tricolor cocker spaniel puppy sitting on the bottom shelf of a desk, looking up. He is shirt enough that his head doesnt touch the bottom of the next shelf. In the background is wooden flooring and a black metal puppy gate

When I'm working on ny thesis from home, Ebro likes to supervise from the bottom shelf of my desk 💙

Picture of a young puppy in a white bed bin, with a ran blanket in it and a tennis ball. The puppy is looking at the camera and just his head and chest are visible; his body is white, while his ears are black and there are two black spots around his eyes, and brown and grey speckling on his face

Officially have a new work-from-home buddy, Ebro (named after my favourite birding spot, the Ebro Delta)!
Aberdeen hasn't been any easier lately but having him around has been such a joy (even if he constantly tries to eat my bird guide books)

... Is it though?

Nearly everywhere we look we find non-hetero relations. Absence of anything queer would be the unexpected outcome!

A screenshot from an email sent by Aberdeen School of Biological Sciences, with a picture of the Kings College and in orange letters the words "change the narrative", then underneath the words "World Suicide Prevention Day". The text below outlines the importance of looking out for each other

From an email sent from the School of Biological Sciences, whose (current) Head of School said he didn't care if I killed myself. Aberdeen is so exhausting

"Forests and grasslands often seem like distinct ecological worlds — but what happens where they meet? This question guided our investigation into how species interact at habitat edges..."
Read the blog post in English here: buff.ly/AXqPMhz
Leia o post do blog em Português aqui: buff.ly/dEtKTsk

Best of luck!!

1/10 We are thrilled to announce that our new paper on conservation genomics of the Balearic shearwater has just been published online at @pnas.org! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

⏰ CLOSING SOON!

BOU Blog Editor vacancy

You'll be responsible for sourcing, editing and publishing content on #theBOUblog & will receive an annual honorarium in return

⏰ Deadline: Friday 29 August

Apply now! bou.org.uk/about-the...

#ornithology 🪶

A photo of the Swiss Ornithological Institute, taken from the parking lot. The building is a bright red horizontal rectangle building, with three floors of windows and a sign in the top left with the logo and "Vogelwarte.ch"

A photo of three ornithological guides/atlases in Catalan: Catàleg dels ocells dels Països Catlans (which has a realistic depiction of shearwaters flying above the water), Atles dels Ocells Nidificants de Menorca (a tan book with a brown partridge with chicks line drawing), and Ocells de Catalunya, País Valencià i Balears (a white guide book with a black spine and images of several birds such as an owl, grouse, vulture, tern, duck, and passerines)

It’s been a dream come true to visit the Swiss Ornithological Institute this week and utilize their incredible international library to prepare for an exciting interdisciplinary project (and speed-skim as many bird monographs as possible while here)! Thanks @alexbrighten1.bsky.social for hosting!

It was a pleasure to host a workshop on #LanguageBarriers yesterday at #Behaviour2025!

Thank you to everyone who came along!

@asab.org @behaviour2025.bsky.social @christopherwmiller.bsky.social @avezyrakis.bsky.social

The coolest! Love a good gull 😍

Fue un honor realizar la versión en español de esta entrevista y conocer el recorrido profesional y la experiencia de Mariano como de "Research Highlights Editor" en el Journal of Animal Ecology. ¡Consulta las versiones en inglés y en español a continuación!

It was an honour to be able to conduct the Spanish version of this interview and learn about Mariano's career journey and experience as the Research Highlights Editor! Check out the English and Spanish versions below!

We've now got translations of our #InverteFest graphic on our website!! You'll find Bahasa Indonesia, Español, Français and Italiano so far, with more to come soon.

#InverteFest is GLOBAL, because everyone should love bugs.

www.metrofieldguide.com/invertefest/

¡Volvemos con el podcast!

✔️Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXJSQcR3EqY&list=PLp7uYJI4V_U51hGn1YMmsBi2lO_YQECvz
✔️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6w9qXvCr5BHLCvNN6JOADE?si=10e9fe6c58594359
✔️Ivoox: https://www.ivoox.com/127897-ep-2x01-volvemos-al-campo-audios-mp3_rf_153013199_1.html

LPS is still looking for volunteers for this upcoming year, if anyone is interested!

Winter ASAB 2025 December 15th-16th Edinburgh ASABwinter.github.io/2025/ How sensory information affects behaviour Logo of a moth

Join us for #ASABWinter2025 in Edinburgh Dec 15-16 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Abstracts for posters/talks due Aug 29

More details here: asabwinter.github.io/2025/

🌿 Thousands of pressed plants
🧳 Centuries of global collecting
📜 Millions of herbarium records - digitised & ready to explore!

Our Data Portal is growing - come browse the collection: data.kew.org?utm_source=b...

💬 Already using the data? We’d love to hear from you! 📗🌾

A photo of a book on a wooden surface: the book is a hardcover book with a white to sky blue gradient, and a black outline of a bird of prey flying in the bottom right of the cover, and the same outline but larger in blue on the left side of the book, extending to the back cover. The title says "Birds" in red, then in black letters the sub-title "Alternative Names: A World Checklist". The author's name, Walter Lodge, is written in red at the bottom of the book

One of the local thrift stores always has the best bird guides/books, and today brought one of my favourite finds there so far, a book on alternative names for species used around the world! (although unfortunately just for English names)

A selfie photo of a person with a brown winter coat with the hood up, as it's raining slightly. They're holding a white envelope and smiling

STEM FRIENDS!
Letters to a Pre-Scientist registration is still open for this next year! This program matches STEM professionals with middle/high school students to encourage them to follow their passions and show them that anyone can be a scientist. I highly recommend it!

prescientist.org/register/

Gracias!!

A picture of a painting on a canvas; it is of a fulmar seabird smoking a cigarette on a solid black background

When I was learning Spanish, I remembered the word fumar (to smoke) by picturing a fulmar with a cigarette, and this week I decided to paint it 😅

A digital drawing on a dark blue background of three stages of the zebra shark life cycle. The first is a small brown and tan striped shark; underneath is a slightly larger shark that is now more tan but still had some light brown remnants of stripes; the third is an adult and is tan with a white belly and black spots. The title in white is "Zebra Shark" and it's scientific name "Stegostoma tigrinum"

It's also Shark Awareness Day, the perfect time to celebrate one of my favourite non-bird animals, the zebra shark! Although they're born with stripes, their pattern becomes spotted when they mature!

Love this!

A selfie photo of a person with brown hair in a ponytail wearing a white tank top, sitting in a bird hide. They are holding binoculars with a green neck strap, and have a notebook and mini-guides in front of them on the small ledge

Today is International Non-Binary People’s Day, which celebrates this beautiful identity and raises awareness about the struggles we still face because of it. Every year I post a happy photo of myself birding because despite the ignorance/hatred of some people, they have not been able to erase joy 🏳️‍⚧️

Image of a Puffin by Sarah Kelman/BTO alongside wording over the image that reads: We're hiring. Senior Research Ecologist. Bioacoustics Support Officer. Seabird Monitoring Support Officer. www.bto.org/jobs

Join us at BTO! Discover jobs and apply at www.bto.org/jobs