A new book for weekend reading: UP by @drlucyrogers.com (approved 🐱).

Upgrading our flight simulator for the next step: analysing wingbeats with DeepLabCut @deeplabcut.bsky.social and high-speed video (up to 300 fps) under different light and magnetic conditions
#insectmigration #butterflies #insectnavigation

Cartoon

As spring migration ramps up, some tall buildings turn their lights off at night to save #birds from deadly impacts with glass, but not enough

At a time of declining songbird numbers, we need better policy than voluntary measures to protect all those winged beauties from this fate:

#RIN26 #memories #AnimalNavigationConference

Animal Navigation conference RIN26

The living lab above: Science of the sky Join engineer and inventor Lucy Rogers for a vivid, curiosity-fuelled journey through the sky as a dynamic living laboratory.

On Monday evening I'm giving a talk at The Royal Institution - 'The living lab above - science of the sky'

See you there?

Tickets still available - both online and IRL:

www.rigb.org/whats-on/liv...

The first day was full of exciting animal research input:

Two sessions covering topics on cultural and genetic inheritance 🧬🧪 and celestial navigation ✨️☀️🕗 in moths, birds and fish🦋🐦🐟 as well as a poster session with flash talks to attract interested visitors 🦋💡🤗

🐦 New PhD position!
@prfju.bsky.social @ckecz.bsky.social
Nest defence in passerine birds

Interested in animal behaviour, fieldwork and evolutionary ecology?
📅 Start July 2026 | ⏳ 4 years | 💰 Fully funded

Apply by May 10 → veselp03@jcu.cz / krausl07@jcu.cz

#PhDjobs #PhDchat #PhD #ornithology

Our latest guidance on what and when to feed garden birds: Feed Safely, Feed Seasonally To reduce disease, we all need to make some urgent but simple changes to how we feed our garden birds.

A new guide from @rspb.bsky.social on how to safely help your garden birds with feeders 🐦
www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen...

Bridging the gap: improving methodologies for future avian microbiome research Recent advances in the field of wild avian microbiome research have significantly deepened our understanding of the eco-evolutionary dynamics of bird–microbe interactions. Consequently, the field is ...

New review paper on bird #microbiome methods out!

Bridging the gap: improving methodologies for future avian microbiome research

🐦🦠🧬 #OA @avianbiology.bsky.social @charlisdavies.bsky.social @kbodawatta.bsky.social

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Students of ASSAB!

⭐The 2026 round of ASSAB grant applications are now open⭐

If you are conducting research on animal behaviour in the Australasian region, apply here: www.assab.org/grants-2026

Zebra finches in Australia; one of the study organisms for the PhD

Dwarf mongoose staring at a camera in South Africa; one of the PhD study organisms

📢Fully-funded #PhD opportunity with us

❓Quantifying animal #movement patterns & behavioural #interactions in a changing world

👥Joint position in @bristolbiosci.bsky.social & #MacquarieUniversity

📆19th April deadline
tinyurl.com/343acaev
#maths #modelling #data #fieldwork #Australia

🙏PLEASE SHARE

Flexible, abstract rhythm perception in bumble bees Flexible, abstract rhythm perception underpins human music, dance, and speech, but thus far, it has only been demonstrated in a few birds and mammals. In this work, we show that bumble bees also form ...

What do The Bee Gees and bumblebees have in common? Both bees have rhythm!🕺🪩🐝 check out this new paper where authors show that bumblebees can discriminate rhythms across sensory modalities! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Secrets of the bees: Revealing the sneaky genius of nature's brightest thinkers New science is showing that nature’s vital pollinators are smarter than we ever imagined. Here’s why that discovery should change what we think about one of the world’s most important animals.

Lovely NatGeo article by Hannah Nordhaus, featuring plenty of "nature's brightest thinkers", former team members Mathieu Lihoreau and Olli Loukola, plus myself (and with excellent photography by Karine Aigner): www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Insect eggs and sperm: evolutionary and biophysical interactions at University of Lincoln on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Insect eggs and sperm: evolutionary and biophysical interactions at University of Lincoln, listed on FindAPhD.com

Fascinating PhD project on the match between insect sperm and eggs across different insects. Great team too!
#PhDAlert #insects

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

First whole-brain recording of social sound processing in a vertebrate. Surprises start in the hindbrain; thalamus gates conspecific calls; male and female brains diverge downstream. Work by @joerghenninger.bsky.social, @mh123.bsky.social sky.social and team. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

"Why is publishing so expensive?" It's a question I hear all the time, so we at @biologists.bsky.social thought we'd try to dispel some of the myths around publishing economics & provide transparency around our costs. Today, we publish editorials in all 5 of our journals - links in the thread below.

Sakura blossoms in full bloom on the Keele university campus.
#springblossom #keeleuniversity #sakura

These birds suck—literally Scientists spot first example of suction feeding in the avian world

Butterflies suck—nectar. Walruses suck—clams. And most fishes suck everything they eat.

But birds? Scientists had never seen suction—until now. https://scim.ag/4tbNmyQ

82% of Britain’s electricity is currently zero carbon.

This is an incredible achievement of which we should be rightly proud and motivated to go further, faster.

Instead, we’ve got fossil fuelled politicians telling us we should be focusing on 93% depleted North Sea oil & gas.

We asked the researchers at #ASABSpring2026 if they could summarise their posters in 10 words or less - and they stepped up to the challenge 😍

(Also watch to the end for a celebrity cameo⭐️)

Explore live radio by rotating the globe Explore live radio by rotating the globe.

This is so cool. Radio Garden is a non-profit Dutch radio and digital research project developed the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Over 40,000 stations available as of 2024 radio.garden

The #ASABSpring2026 ceilidh at Zerodegrees in Bristol! 🪩

Don’t forget, there will be more dancing fun at the gala dinner ceilidh at @ecbb2026.bsky.social, make sure you register for it!

Post-doc opportunity on comparative cognition and movement dynamics in corvids with the brilliant Prof Debbie Kelly at the University of Manitoba

A waggle dancer and dance followers. CREDIT: Heather Broccard-Bell (NOD Apiary Products Ltd, Ontario, Canada).

When honeybees communicate to nestmates about the location of food resources through dance, the size and age of the audience matters: Bees dance precisely when many bees old enough to follow the dancer to food are present. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/wA4w50YySJr

Want to draw attention to your poster at a conference? 🧵✨
Cross-stitch a QR code onto cotton and attach it to your board. Cool idea!
#ASABSpring2026 #bristoluniversity

3️⃣ days left to submit an abstract for poster and oral contributions for #ICN2026Vancouver

↘️ icn2026vancouver.com/poster-oral-... ↙️

Share widely and come to the most inspiring #neuroethology conference 🧠🪱🐟🦋🐦🐸🦎🐢🐝🐜🦀🦞🐙

A CV of grants that were not funded and jobs applied for but not offered

A CV of grants that were not funded and jobs applied for but not offered

A CV of grants that were not funded and jobs applied for but not offered

A CV of grants that were not funded and jobs applied for but not offered

In academia, we're good at talking about successes, but sweep unfunded grants & unsuccessful job apps under the rug. It can be a tough road, filled w/ failure*

For anyone discouraged about the process, here's my failure CV

#AcademicSky 🧪

*None are really failures if you learn from them

Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tra...

Nice summary of long distance insect migration in the Guardian today with fancy graphics www.theguardian.com/environment/...