Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland'

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...

Light trap that looks like a ghost or a jellyfish

Biologists at work: light trapping in the night

Here we go again: field resesarch 🧪🌳✨️
First #LightTrapping session for our @sfb1372.bsky.social #arthropod #biodiversity project in collaboration with @robertrollins1892.bsky.social in @genmig.bsky.social lab from the @ifv-whv.bsky.social 💡🦋 🕷🪲🦟
I just love the trap that looks like a 👻! Or 🪼?

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/...

thanks a lot to all who attended, and made it such a wonderful event - full of cool science, great talks & posters, thought provoking discussions, lovely chats with wonderful peope, beautiful and very hot venue ☀️

bonus content: artsy highlight by Lukas Weiss - his programme summary in snippets 🦄🧬🧪

New publication by @commonternproject.bsky.social with @coralinebcht.bsky.social, @mmoiron.bsky.social, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social & @icbm-uol.bsky.social: 'Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival'. doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Special thanks to this year's organizer of the Neuroethology GRC, Julie Simpson & @genmig.bsky.social. We had a fantastic week of great science, met colleagues or started collaborations. We are looking forward to the next GRC in 2 years.

2027 Co-Vice chairs: Jessica Fox & @scottjuntti.bsky.social

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. :-)

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

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. ❤️

134 grams of loveliness. ❤️

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

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:

Individual routes of common terns Sterna hirundo are adaptive: they can be flexibly adjusted to environmental variation, as shows Kürten et al. in a new paper based on data from light-level geolocators. Read more on doi.org/10.1098/rspb... . @birgenhaest.bsky.social

68 nests with chicks now. ❤️

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. :-)

Individual Behavioral Responses to Novel Stimuli in Breeding Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) We analyzed behavioral responses of 42 breeding terns to novel stimuli, considering intrinsic characteristics. The response was repeatable, stronger (i.e., individuals approached slower) in females a...

ETHOLOGY: How do breeding common terns react to novelty? 🐦🪺🔺😲 Castano et al. find that females take consistently longer than males to return to the nest after encountering a novel object—and that responses vary by reproductive stage but not age.
#AnimalBehavior #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1111/eth....

Fresh siblings and lots of chick ringing during today’s check of the colony. Even the rain held off to let us do our job. 🐣

Live from the field: the first 4 chicks of 2025 have hatched. ❤️ #babyboom

Home - NaviSense NaviSense - International Cluster of Excellence Proposal for the Sensory Basis, Mechanisms, and Impacts of Animal Navigation.

Grateful & excited that more tern work will be funded through one of the 70 #ClustersOfExcellence granted by the @dfg.de today. From 01/01/2026, ‘Navisense’ will work to provide mechanistic understanding of animal naviation, and support conservation efforts. You can follow along here: navisense.org

Home - NaviSense NaviSense - International Cluster of Excellence Proposal for the Sensory Basis, Mechanisms, and Impacts of Animal Navigation.

over the moon happy and grateful! on my way to @lundvision.bsky.social I followd the announcement of #ClustersOfExcellence by the @dfg.de on the floor of a crowded train. #NaviSense 🦋🧭🧬🧪🧠🐝🪲🔬 in all its beauty flew high! such a fantastic team, amazing spirit and wonderful vision - ready for take off!

Big congrats to the Navisense excellence cluster www.navisense.org that will be funded by the DFG for the next 7 years! Congrats to all of our SFB members that are involved! @genmig.bsky.social @commonternproject.bsky.social @migecol.bsky.social @cataglyphilosophy.bsky.social @olindecke.bsky.social

The Banter See season in numbers so far: we have registered 372 birds, 189 nests have been initiated, 42 blood samples have been collected and 28 birds have been caught to attach or remove a geolocator. Next up: chick ringing. Hatching should start any day now. ❤️

From one field site to the next. Back at the Banter See, Kator & Anea from nest 11 on island C have turned into the managers of the entire island, bloodsampling any scientist that dares to come close. :-)

Last weekend was exciting! Together with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social,‬ and thanks to the amazing teams at Druid & Interrex, we deployed the first gull-billed tern with a GPS. It returned to the nest after a quick preening session and for the last 3 days has shared its foraging sites with us.

Really worth a read if you are interested in life-history physiology or mitochondrial function 👇

Male inbreeding reduces fertility, but does not accelerate in vivo sperm senescence: an experimental approach in a polyandrous bird royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Evolution