Christopher Pollock

Job Advert reads: Work with us! Seabird Monitoring Programme Organsier www.bto.org/jobs With a photo of a Razorbill flying behind the text.

📢Job alert! We’re looking for the next Seabird Monitoring Programme Organiser to join the BTO Surveys Team!🔭📈

ℹ️ For more information and to apply: www.bto.org/jobs
🗓️ Deadline for applications: 8th Sept 2025.

#seabirds #citizenscience
@btobirds.bsky.social, @jncc.bsky.social, @rspb.bsky.social

Image description: figure from review titled Map and compass navigation: the mechanism and ontogeny of animal maps. The figure shows how environmental cues can vary in predictable gradients through space, generating unique cue combinations at each location. The second part of this figure shows how animals may respond to these cue combinations, either treating them as discrete cue-location associations, or as continuous gradients. These differences may lead to differences in navigational strategies and performance.

Ever wondered how animals know where they are? Or how they find where they need to be?

The answer is that they have maps and compasses built into their heads! Excited to see this new review of map-and-compass navigation led by Joe Morford out in Animal Behaviour @asab.org

doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

A small wader bird (Sanderling) is wearing a running number, blue trainers, and a headband. The background is a bright green street map design. The large text reads: “How different birds would run a marathon*” and underneath, in smaller type: “*Not approved by RSPB fact-checkers.”

How different birds would run a marathon... a thread. 👇

Reckon you could outdo these birds? We're taking applications for London Marathon 2026 Team RSPB runners.

Follow the link to apply, you have 'til Sunday! 🏅

rspb.org.uk/helping-natu...

Asymptomatic infection and antibody prevalence to co-occurring avian influenza viruses vary substantially between sympatric seabird species following H5N1 outbreaks - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Asymptomatic infection and antibody prevalence to co-occurring avian influenza viruses vary substantially between sympatric seabird species following H5N1 outbreaks

New paper on avian flu in seabirds from an Edinburgh Uni PhD student published! Edinburgh University has been working on the Isle of May with UKCEH and other partners to investigate the effects of this virus among seabirds. Read about it here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Partial Niche Partitioning in Three Sympatric Gull Species Through Foraging Areas and Habitat Selection | Ecology and Evolution | doi.org/10.1002/ece3... | #ornithology 🌍🧪#seabirds

A checklist for designing and improving the visualization of scientific data - Nature Cell Biology Creating clear and engaging scientific figures is crucial to communicate complex data. In this Comment, I condense principles from design, visual perception and data visualization research in a checkl...

Lots of invaluable advice here for both early stage researchers and well established folk. Well thought out impactful figures are key to getting your points across, and it's all too common to see poor practice 🧪🧬🖥️🌍 #datavis #bioinformatics
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A dead Black-headed Gull at a colony in Norfolk, UK, photographed by Dawn Balmer / BTO, and likely a victim of high pathogenicity avian influenza.

22 papers across two issues document the impact of #AvianInfluenza and assess effectiveness of management responses. They show the unprecedented scale of the outbreak, decimating populations across Europe, Africa, North and South America to the South Atlantic.
📚 bit.ly/bird-study-h...
#Ornithology

📖Published📖

Check out our new Perspective article 👉 Empirical ecology to support mechanistic modelling: Different objectives, better approaches and unique benefits 🌍 🧪

buff.ly/obwawk5

New #UKCEH dataset published on how breeding seabirds spend their time and energy. These data will help us to model the potential impacts of any changes in seabird behaviour in response to new offshore windfarms catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/07...

🧪🌊🦑 #jobs #postdoc Last call for applications, deadline is this Sunday for a 42-months #Research Fellow post in Plymouth (Salary £39,355-£45,413). All things #plankton, #predators, remote #sensing & #autonomy
APPLY NOW 👇

Pre-laying sex differences in reproductive roles can constrain foraging behaviour in a monomorphic seabird - Marine Biology Sex differences in foraging behaviour can arise in monomorphic species when reproductive roles differ. How these differences shape foraging behaviour during the pre-laying period—an understudied repro...

Am super excited that our new paper is out, it looks at how reproductive role can constrain foraging and restrict evening diving opportunities for males during the pre-laying period in Manx shearwaters🥚

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The First GPS Observation of a Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) Riding in a Long-Haul Garbage Transfer Truck | doi.org/10.1675/063.... | Waterbirds | #ornithology 🪶

A marine predator relies on both social cues and frequently updated memory to search for prey | royalsocietypublishi... | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | #ornithology #seabirds 🪶

Free webinar from the PrePARED project providing key highlights/findings from Report 006.

🗓️ 21st May, 12-12:30 (BST)
🎟️ Free, online - events.teams.microsoft.com/event/eae7d8...

Learn more and find the full reports here -https://owecprepared.org/outputs/

🧪🌐🌊🐟🦑🌍🌬️
#offshorewind #scotland

Join #PrePAREDProject to learn more about one of the project's most recent reports, looking at the similarity of different offshore wind farm sites in the UK.🌊

#offshorewind #marinerenewables #marinebiology

Recently moved from #microbiome (16S) to diet (12S) metabarcoding, where you kinda know what should be there. Made me realise how many methods challenges there are with metabarcoding that are often swept under the rug in microbiome studies because you can't SEE what should be there 1/n

*Job Opportunity* #Seabird #Ecologist with @n-t-s.bsky.social. @theseabirdgroup.bsky.social @rspbscotland.bsky.social #ornithology #biosecurity #seabirdersaturday www.nts.org.uk/volunteering-jobs/job-search/highlands-islands

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Scopoli’s Warbler flying over the sea with its wing clipping the water

Scopoli’s Shearwater clipping the sea just off Marseille as we head out on the ferry to Corsica. Plenty of Yelkouan Shearwaters too with @ninaohanlon.bsky.social

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers Thirty three reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers
Reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

predirections.substack.com/p/what-i-wis...

Obituary in IBIS

Mike Harris (1939 - 2023)

doi.org/10.1111/ibi....

One of the world's best known, most loved and most outstanding seabird biologists

#ornithology

Labour’s great nature sellout is the worst attack on England’s ecosystems I’ve seen in my lifetime | George Monbiot The horrifying planning bill, which rips up environmental protections, was drafted with CEOs in mind. We know because Keir Starmer told us, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

1. Because this issue is critical, but has received remarkably little coverage, here's a thread pulling out the key themes from my article yesterday, on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which puts decades of environmental protections to the torch. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Image of a Guillemot alongside the wording: new study. Current understanding of how climate change affects seabirds varies between regions and species in the North-East Atlantic. www.bto.org/seabird-knowledge-gaps. BTO logo top right of image. Guillemot image by © Edmund Fellowes / BTO.

1/ BTO-led research identifies key gaps in our knowledge and understanding of how climate change is affecting #seabirds. Find out more ⬇️ or visit our website ➡️ www.bto.org/seabird-... #Ornithology 🌍 🌐

1/7 Variation between individuals is important as it determines how adaptable to change a population might be. Even generalist spp are often comprised of specialist individuals, but specialisation is often only studied across single traits which is limiting.
#BOU2025 #ornithology #seabirds #ecology

New review out in J Anim Ecol!
We explore how to predict animal movements in human-modified environments, highlighting the need for mechanistic models to guide conservation.
📄 doi.org/10.1111/1365...
#MovementEcology #Anthropocene

Image of study site Bluemull Sound, Shetland, and a foraging European Shag

1/6 Tidal stream environments are unique marine habitats characterised by fast tidal currents.

Knowledge of how #seabirds use these areas for foraging is scarce.

@tomgale98.bsky.social is at #BOU2025 presenting work on understanding drivers of habitat selection of Shags in these environments...

@ukceh.bsky.social Training day for the upcoming release of the new SeabORD 2.0 model release for estimating impacts from Offshore Renewable Developments on breeding seabirds - led by @tonyauk.bsky.social #OWEC #PrePARED

And we're live!

Interactions between birds and offshore wind farms project Institute of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics IBED, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research NIOZ, Rijkswaterstaat, Gemini Wind Park

1/2 A brief introduction to some of our research through this storymap summarizing our project "Interactions between birds and offshore windfarms" with links our papers. Funded by NWO, @rijkswaterstaat.bsky.social & Gemini windpark
storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/51e7...

The need for an individual-based global change ecology Biodiversity loss and widespread ecosystem degradation are among the most pressing challenges of our time, requiring urgent action. Yet our understanding of their causes remains limited because prevai...

Paper just out:

Jeltsch et al.

The need for an individual-based global change ecology ibe.pensoft.net/articles.php...