She took a year off from nesting on our feeder, but she’s back and sitting on 4 eggs! 🪺 🐦‍⬛🦉

Mixed up Cave and Cliff Swallows in this morning's Ornithology lab, but don't worry, the eBird police pointed out my error in less than 30 minutes. Phew!

Migration speed, timing, and long-term shifts in age structure in North American passerines during fall migration vist.ly/4y22b #AvianConservation #Migration #Demography

They are tough! Not enough "pink" for a pink-sided junco. I'd lean towards Oregon, but I am poorly versed in the Cassier group. Regardless, it seems like a vagrant rather than a normal winter/migration resident. Borja Mila is who we really need to hear from.

New paper out: Artificial selection for increased reproductive effort accelerates actuarial senescence and reduces lifespan in a precocial bird url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... @uniexecec.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social @joelpick.bsky.social y.social @oscarvedder.bsky.social

An early view of this accepted manuscript is now available! I'll share it again once it is typeset and everything, of course.

This is the first robin paper out from my dissertation! With coauthors T.J. Benson, Ryan Paitz, Kevin McGraw, & @thecowbirdlab.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/auk/advance-...

Congrats on a very nice and important paper!

🚨NEW SCIENCE ALERT!🚨Read our new, open-access publication in Scientific Reports (@nature.com) describing #biofluorescence in #cassowary casques! Very excited to unveil this after keeping it secret for 5 years⬇️
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
NYITCOM @akiopteryx.bsky.social @jonathanberman.bsky.social

We're hiring an Assistant Professor of Ecology! Come and join me and a great group of colleagues at University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Our job ad: efhc.fa.ca2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Message me if you have questions. @ibiouwindsor.bsky.social @uwindsor.bsky.social

Saw Project Hail Mary (fun!). Minor spoilers...Centrifuges play a major role in the movie - it's how they generate gravity in space. However, when they use a tabletop centrifuge to spin their precious samples THEY DON'T BALANCE IT. 🤦‍♂️

Urban birdsongs: higher minimum song frequency of an urban colonist persists in a common garden experiment Environmental changes caused by urbanization and noise pollution can have profound effects on acoustic communication. Many organisms use higher sound …

Fascinating! Congrats!! Our common garden data from the UCSD juncos strongly suggested that the increased minimum frequency in that city population was due to a genetic change rather than plasticity. These shifts might not be easily reversed in every species. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

An infographic summarizing the key findings of the new paper "Acoustic differences persist in urban Parus major (Great Tit) over two decades of declining anthropogenic noise in Paris, France" by Dan Mennill and Hans Slabbekoorn. A cartoon image shows a sound recordist recording a Great Tit on a street in Paris. One inset graph shows that noise levels in Paris have declined from 2008 to 2023. A second inset graph shows that Great Tits sing at higher song frequencies when the ambient environment is louder. A third inset graph shows that Great Tits continue to sing higher-freuqency songs in 2023 versus 2003; even though Paris is growing quieter, Great Tits in Paris sing higher frequency songs than quiet forests outside of Paris.

Our new paper is out: "Acoustic differences persist in urban Parus major (Great Tit) over two decades of declining anthropogenic noise in Paris, France."
A study of noise and bird song, by me and Hans Slabbekoorn, in Ornithological Applications @amornith.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.1093/orni...

For my bird conservation lecture in orni, i wanna present 2-3 case studies, incl conservation successes and conservation “fails”. Also want to include both tropical and N American examples, and i want the bottom line to be that cons is as much or more about ppl than ab nature. What should i include?

Some classics - California Condor, Whooping Cranes, and Hawaiian songbirds. The saga of the Hawaiian Crow (Alala) is fascinating and ongoing. Captive breeding has been somewhat successful, but reintroductions have not gone well due to predation. Birds have been released and then recaptured.

I second this example. It's got everything, including a discussion of species concepts and why they matter for conservation. You can build out a richer story from this paper with other sources. I do an entire class meeting just on this case study!

My department at OWU is hiring a full-time Visiting Assistant Professor for next year! The job would be perfect for anyone interested in working at a small liberal arts college. Please share broadly (repost!). More details to follow...
www.owu.edu/about/office...

Our department is full of wonderful people that will share notes and resources to help you with the course and your professional development. Questions? Please reach out to me over email. You can find my contact info on the OWU website.

The lab portion of the course follows an established lab manual. Our wonderful lab coordinators prepare all the materials and reagents each week. The majority of your prep work would be for the lecture portion.

The VAP will teach lecture and lab sections of BIOL 120: Intro to Cell Biology. It is a gateway course, and ANYONE with a PhD in any field of biology could teach this course. So, please don't be discouraged by the course title. We want everyone to apply, especially if you want to teach at a SLAC.

My department at OWU is hiring a full-time Visiting Assistant Professor for next year! The job would be perfect for anyone interested in working at a small liberal arts college. Please share broadly (repost!). More details to follow...
www.owu.edu/about/office...

Anna's hummingbird hovering. Facing to the right. With a small ant on the tip of its bill.

Sometimes you just get that shot. Anna's hummingbird with a little friend, in my yard. Davis, CA. #birds #ants

Milkweed evolves ‘mind-blowing’ tactic to fight monarchs | Cornell Chronicle Milkweed has found a new strategy in its epic evolutionary battle with monarch butterflies: structurally upgrading its toxins to outmaneuver monarchs' resistance.

Here is the Cornell Chronicle article about our PNAS paper on the evolution of milkweed toxins (N,S-cardenolides), to which the monarch butterfly is sensitive, despite being co-evolved with milkweeds!

@cornellentomology.bsky.social

news.cornell.edu/stories/2026...

Pine Warbler, by Jonathan Ley

Today’s Migrant: Pine Warbler!

One of the earliest returning warblers, Pine Warblers often show up weeks before peak migration.

Have you seen a Pine Warbler yet this spring?

We're hiring a post doc!

Looking for a global change ecologist to work with Jenny McGuire & a multidisciplinary team including me and
@jameststroud.bsky.social on the ecology side of things

please share widely!

Please spread the word about a postbac position in Behavioral Neuroscience at Dartmouth with me, Shelley Warlow, and Kyle smith. The postbac will contribute to collaborative projects across the three labs aimed at studying the neuroscience of motivation and reward learning.

The forecasted wind chill for my first field lab in ornithology tomorrow morning is 9 degrees F. So much for delaying "until the weather warms up a bit." 🫠

For decades biologists assumed ravens follow wolves to their kills.
Our paper @science.org shows something different: ravens rarely follow wolves far. Instead they remember areas where wolf kills are common and return to them—sometimes from >150 km away.
doi.org/10.1126/science.adz9467
📷Dan Stahler

A fitting end to teaching speciation in the last week of undergrad evolution. Darwin 1858 March 11th, definitely was running on empty in week 10 of the quarter.

I use Gemini when I'm bored — and it's better than doomscrolling It became my ultimate distraction

WHAT IF YOU JUST WENT FUCKING BIRDING INSTEAD www.androidpolice.com/i-use-gemini...

Related - did you see how I avoided a "dangling this" there? I have you to thank for that. All of my students do too.