Ron Efrat

Would have been really interesting if that was the real result of the SDM.. Luckily, it was just a small mistake in my R code.

In Defence of Bird Conservation in a Broken World In a world torn by wars and crises, bird conservation can seem irrelevant. Yet to protect life itself is not indulgence – it’s resistance.

"To continue protecting birds in an age of chaos is an act of defiance against cynicism"

An important and very relevant opinion:

theornithologist.org/in-defence-o...

🪶🌎 #ornithology #conservation

Bird migration is changing. What does this reveal about our planet? – visualised Bird migrations rank as one of nature’s greatest spectacles. Thanks to GPS tracking, scientists are uncovering extraordinary insights into ancient and mysterious journeys – and new threats that are re...

This is how you connect people to nature through science. Well done @theguardian.com !

🧪🪶🌎🐾 #ornithology #conservation #movementecology

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Still there on Sep 30th (reported on FB)

She was inspiring. She really made a difference. And she really believed in mankind. RIP Jane Goodall, may we have the power to take the inspiration you gave us and keep fighting the fight for nature and mankind.

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

The colour-marked Sanderling photographed in Israel, still carrying its radiotransmitter

A vagrant juvenile Sanderling turned up in Israel—likely after a single non-stop flight from the Dutch Wadden Sea. Here’s thread explaining why that’s remarkable and interesting. @wadertales.bsky.social @globalflyway.bsky.social #Birds #Migration

Is it really? Do you really think that double blind is meant for the student who's first author? I think that it is usually more about the last author or the group.

I think that it depends on the types of corrections - is it potentially wrong or misleading? I say raise these issues until the editor makes their decision.
But if it is "this could have been better", than in my opinion that might be beyond the referee's job, especially in the second round.

Officially yes, but working with animals as study species, it is almost impossible to really hide who the involved study groups are. I know who is working on species X in area Y, so what you mentioned will only mean that I do not know who exactly the authors from these groups are.

Just started reviewing a paper that's supposed to be double-blind. There are indeed no names in the document, but the file names are the name of the first author...

Which made me think - how often do you really not know who's paper you are reviewing?

🧪🌎

Understanding migration: Functional Ecology <em>Functional Ecology</em> journal publishes high-impact research providing a mechanistic understanding of ecological pattern and process from the organismic to ecosystem scale.

Happy to be included in the ‘Understanding Migration’ virtual issue at Functional Ecology — alongside many influential papers 🐦🎉 #birdmigration #movementecology #ornithology
@funecology.bsky.social @besmovesig.bsky.social
👉 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

Egyptian Nightjars are residents in the Dead Sea region, showing a high year-round roost fidelity - Journal of Ornithology We investigated the spatial behavior of a recently discovered breeding population of Egyptian Nightjars (Caprimulgus aegyptius) near the Dead Sea. While there is a prevalent migratory tendency in othe...

After many many nights of field work, Yohay Wasserlauf led the GPS tagging of a few birds, discovering that at least some are resident.
How long were they there without us knowing? What else is under our noses without us knowing?

🧪🌎🪶🐾 #ornithology #conservation

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

These amazing birds breed and roost in what can only be described as Martian Habitat. They find shade under trees that were washed centuries ago when the Dead Sea reached further north.
Feeding seems to mainly occur in nearby agriculture fields

In 2014, a car hit a strange bird in the northern Dead Sea area. The driver found a dead Egyptian #Nightjar, and saw another one flying away. First observation for that area.

Multiple efforts started - surveys, ringing, tagging - and a breeding population was discovered!

Larger than a blackbird, in one of the most populated areas in the world, but still unseen for who knows how long.

A second paper from the story of the discovery of the Egyptian #Nightjar in the Dead Sea area was published recently.

🧪🐾🌎🪶
📷 Y. Wasserlauf

#ornithology #conservation #ecology

Another touristic site with my parents, another cool #bird_behavior. This time, Mainau and its beautiful trees present a cool Nuthach.

#ornithology

Took my parents to see the Rhine Falls today.
They enjoyed the falls, I enjoyed other things enjoying the falls 🙃

#ornithology

One million raptors: But where do they come from? — Batumi Raptor Count As a migration counter, you can’t help but wonder: “Where did the bird I just tallied come from, and where is it going?” In light of BRC’s main aim — monitoring raptor population trends — this very ...

A new study led by @moveandconserve.bsky.social used GPS tracking to test the monitoring potential of Eilat and Batumi.

An invaluable step toward linking counted birds to their origins, but we found it needed some elaboration from a migration count perspective!

Our commentary: tinyurl.com/nnbzu7kc

Hi @askaboutanimals.bsky.social can you please add me? I am a zoologist studying mainly migratory birds but recently adding sedentary mammals so shifting from Ornithologist to Zoologist :) Here is my google scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?us...

This is now officially out with the new @currentbiology.bsky.social issue (current Current Biology issue 🙃).

@yaelbird.bsky.social
🧪🌎🐾🪶 #ornithology #conservation #movement_ecology

Age-dependent response to anthropogenic habitat during migration of an endangered raptor Efrat et al. use complementary data sources and statistical methods to show how experience, weather, and landscape affect endangered eagles’ migratory behavior. Most prominently, they present an exper...

Since you asked, I'll take the opportunity :) We got this published officially today. I am pretty proud of it and I think it is a nice paper: www.cell.com/current-biol...

I think I might print this and put it on my office door (the part about the khachapuri, of course 😋)

Complementary use of Eulerian and Lagrangian data can improve conservation output: A response to (Hoekstra et al., 2025)

So we wrote back
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Science is an ongoing conversation between people. It happens in conferences, in the field, in every day life, and sometimes even over the pages of a scientific journal.

I love it.

@yaelbird.bsky.social

#conservation #ornithology 🧪🐾🌎

Toward integrating migration counts and GPS tracking for flyway-scale avian population monitoring — A response to

So they wrote a comment www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

They raised some good points, improving our initial work, and allowing us to address a few more aspects of our work

@barthoekstra.bsky.social @tohar-tal.bsky.social @wmgvs.bsky.social

#conservation #ornithology 🧪🐾🌎

Using GPS tracking data to validate the conservation value of bird migration counts Effective conservation of migratory birds requires gathering of information about their population trends, often acquired using migratory bird counts.…

Science as a conversation:

In January, we published a paper about migratory bird counts www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

For different reasons, we did not include the managers of the bird counts. But the @batumiraptorcount.org people had some important comments
#conservation #ornithology 🧪🐾🌎

Someone's being enjoying our garden 🤩

A great thank you to the organizers of #BESMove2025!

It was really nice meeting new and old friends, hearing about so many interesting studies and even enjoying nice weather that allowed me to see the local wildlife 😅.

See you next year?

What a wonderful day at the #BESMove2025! Fascinating talks, great people, beautiful campus (see pic).

Really excited to talk about the migratory movements of Steppe Eagles tomorrow.

First time in England (kind of)!

Excited for the @besmovesig.bsky.social #BES #Movement_Ecology annual meeting.