Common Tern Project

A wonderful collaboration with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social ‬and @genmig.bsky.social‬, as well as Michelle Peter and Christoph Müller from @lmumuenchen.bsky.social.

She detects 57 of them, among which various persistent organic pollutants, but also plasticizers and caffeine. For many of these, we do not know about health impacts or toxicity thresholds for any bird species, such that further research on this matter is urgently needed.

Out now in Environmental Research – Anna’s new paper in which she assesses the levels of 118 contaminants in unhatched eggs and dead chicks found in the last and endangered population of gull-billed terns in Central Europe, breeding at Neufelderkoog: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

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

Ooooh, one of our beautiful terns made it to the cover of the issue of Ethology that contains Melina's study on individual behavioral responses to novel stimuli: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hmmm, delicious! 😋🦗 #gullbilledtern #lachstern

Are you interested in the effects of mercury contamination on seabirds?
Check out the latest @commonternproject.bsky.social paper pubblished in Environmental Research!👇

"Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival".
doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

On June 21st I saw the first Gull-billed Terns back in Groningen. Extremely early, a sign that their nest has failed. Rats are the main cause of the failure.
The return of the Gull-billed Terns is also not good news for Great Green Bush-crickets. They are no longer sure of their lives...

Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of thre...

We can do great things when we are working together...
🦭🐋🦈🐻‍❄️🐟🐧🦢*🐢*

Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

And here it is - Justine's last thesis chapter got accepted too and can now be read as an open access paper in Environmental Research: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Our neighbours at the Banter See are no fan of the terns. Luckily the terns don't give a shit. Oh, or maybe sometimes they do. :-)

The tumble.. 😅

Cute findings for a hot Wednesday morning.

The Local Organizing Commitee welcomes behavioral ecologists from across the world and of all career stages to enjoy a five-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities in Turin (Italy), 20-24 July 2026.

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

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

Arrival was earlier, but it does not look like we are going to end up with many more birds this year than last. I guess the 'silent reservoir' was used up, such that we now wait for new recruits from last year's cohort to start making up for the severe losses HPAI induced in 2022 and 2023.

Three weeks ago, the little one on the picture on the left was found cold and almost dead. But yesterday, it was the first chick from 'island A' to get its transponder. Happy fledging, little survivor. May you recruit to produce many little survivors yourself. ❤️

Job alert: We are looking for an enthusiastic and adaptable marine ornithologist to join the JNCC Marine Species Team. More info here: www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...

134 grams of loveliness. ❤️

🗓️ SAVE THE DATE!

Announcing our 2027 spring conference

#BOU2027 | 6 - 8 April 2027 | Nottingham, UK & Zoom & Bluesky

Avian disease ecology: combining avian ecology and OneHealth to understand and mitigate disease

bou.org.uk/event/avi...

#ornithology 🪶

The facial expression of a parent with teenagers. I can relate. 😂

Massive outbreaks of HPAI in Senegal, Gambia in 2023, none of which captured in WAHIS. >10,000 dead African Crested Terns, >400 Caspian Terns, >2000 Grey-headed Gulls, >200 Sandwich Tern
👉 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Weekend loveliness: retrapping a gull-billed tern carrying a GPS and getting to know a few of the newest colony members.

The tracking of the gull-billed terns of @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social is going really well and we're seeing lots of interesting variation in space use. Here's two examples of tracks collected across the last 8 days:

68 nests with chicks now. ❤️

The (open access) paper can be found in Ethology: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

In general, however, females took longer to resume incubation than males did, and birds of both sexes were faster to return during chick rearing than during incubation. Age did not seem to correlate with the latency to resume incubation, and pair members were not assortatively mated for this trait.

Here’s a video of a fun pilot study on tern personality aspects, in which Melina tested how the birds respond to a novel object placed at their nest. Linea from nest 431 did not care much about an orange cone making an appearance. :-)