As always - this would not be possible without the support of @ncn.gov.pl @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social

only a few dozen starting nests and only 1 with eggs!) This year we continue with the behavioral experiment on blue tits - testing their choice of feather decorations they add to their nests. Stay tuned for news and updates:)

Day 22 of the 26th Gotland season! We started on the 14th of April - it’s a surprisingly odd spring here in #Gotland. Exceptionally early arrivals of warblers (chiffchaff, willow warbler and blackcap already gear on the 18th) and exceptionally late for hole nesters (it’s past the 20th and we have

We’re at @hnbirds2025.bsky.social in Olomouc :) tits rule the talks so far - second photo = @szymekdr.bsky.social presenting work on blue tits and steroid hormones.

With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!

It's been a busy summer for our scientists. Several of them attended the #ESEB2025 conference in Barcelona.

Another paper from the lab, this time using very long time series of our flycatcher data.

Budynek Narodowego Centrum Nauki w Krakowie.

📢Nowe zasady open access w NCN: większa elastyczność – ta sama idea.

❗️Z dniem 26 czerwca odeszliśmy od wymogu publikowania wyłącznie w otwartym dostępie, jednak nadal rekomendujemy otwarte udostępnianie wyników badań.
Szczegóły➡ ncn.gov.pl/aktualnosci/...

#openaccess #projektyncn

Not much, just the usual Swedish Midsommar WEATHER DISASTER 🫣 stormy winds, cold showers and apparent temp close to 5 degrees C. Luckily most of our flycatcher broods managed to fledge, fingers crossed for all of them to make out of the island in August;)

Trevlig midsommar ;)

Some stats: team size at the peak - 10, cars - max 8, rings used - 3476 and counting ;)

Nestlings from a blue tit clutch with an unexpected great tit nestling ;)

Tree pipit nest found in one of our northern plots :)

(Good for flycatchers, over 300 breeding attempts and little failures; bad for tits - we’ve lost close to 30% of broods due to early food shortages). Also, a somewhat wetter and colder season, with night frost in the first weeks of May… Recruitment also seems to be record high!

It takes some getting used to moving from Twitter do Bsky ;) we will provide more updates next year, promise ;) in the meantime - I well overdue update from the 46th Gotland field season :) a very early season (a record-early flycatcher first egg from the 4th of May), and a very mixed one

#gotland #fieldwork Day 32: it seems our blue tits finally saw the feathers we left for them to choose from. This one used a lovely set of white (not ours) feathers with an eclectic set of blue peacock feathers :)

Stay away from the vortex ;) #fieldwork day 19th during the 2025 season of the #gotland bird project :)

Chukar partridges. We’ll trace the feathers as they are used by blue tits in their nests. Will they use them, and will they locally specialize or roam the forest looking for particular styles? We’ll see;)

We’re piloting a new study - looking at aesthetic tastes of blue tits, and possibly visual style copying behaviour. Today we distributed artificial bird bodies (mimicking the usual source of feathers for BTs - dead birds and leftover feathers). We used feathers of peacocks, Japanese quails and

Tomorrow we start conquering Öja and adjacent areas, with occasional trips to FP - where änge is being cared for by eerie ghosts barely visible through clouds of smoke… Another good spring starting on #gotland, and another year of spying our cheeky tits and phlegmatic flycatchers. 💜💜

flocks of hundreds of redwings and fieldfares, happily grazing a freshly ploughed field. Gotland greeted us with fog and damp air, but there’s no other place that can be so magical and captivating even in the least favourite weather;)

We are starting our new season #gotland2025 - with warm weather, birds already starting first nests, and a visit to a changed Fide Odvalds plot (see photo: they cut down some of the densest parts, in efforts (as I was told) to eradicate invasive Rubus species…). The highlight of today:

Registration is now open for the Hole-nesting Birds Conference 2025! Researchers of all career stages are warmly invited to join us in the historic city of Olomouc, Czechia. #ornithology

[Link to register: registrace.rapl.upol.cz/Form/HoleNes...

Our lab on @nature.com cover :)

Not quite as burst as we usually do it, but this massive comparative analysis of amphibians, with some of us among its authors, was just published by @nature.com !:)

chatting about ecology, evolution, climate change and birds. Reach out to the PIs (Szymek Drobniak @szymekdr.bsky.social and Aneta Arct) if you prefer to PM us. Older entries and content can still be found through our old account here: x.com/gotland_blames

We're moving out of Twitter (tbh honest tits and collards never did much of any "tweet-tweet" chirping ;)) Follow us for news from the field, Gotland trivia and kuriåsa, recent papers and events - and more. Reach out if you're interested in collaborating, visiting Gotland and ouir birds or just