Whereas Roy returned on the 19th of April, Consuela has not yet returned this year. Let's hope she still does.

Roy also bred each year, with the exception of 2024, after his breeding partners of 2022 and 2023 had both died of avian influenza. In total, he so far fledged 23 chicks. The last 2 of those, he fledged in 2025, with Consuela.

Roy hatched in the nest of Buddy and an unringed mother in 2001, just hours after his sister Dunja. Roy and Dunja both prospected in 2003 and started breeding in 2004. For Dunja this was the only breeding attempt, but Roy has returned every year since.

One week in, 149 birds have been registered. Among them is 25-yr-old Roy, currently the oldest bird of the population, after most other elderly terns died during the HPAI outbreaks of 2022 and 2023.

EARLY VIEW in IBIS

Connectivity between breeding sites, wintering areas, and migration routes in Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) breeding in the Western Palaearctic | onlinelibrary.wiley....

Yosef Kiat, Eli Haviv, Yoav Perlman, Inbal Schekler | #ornithology 🪶

We are looking for a full-time, permanent, animal caretaker in Wilhelmshaven.

Work with songbirds & quail in an international research team:
- Bird care & welfare
- Breeding programs
- Hand-rearing chicks
- Husbandry & hygiene
- Data records

More info: ifv-vogelwarte.de/en/institute...

We suggest that body feathers are most suitable for characterising the mercury levels of seabirds in a little-invasive way, but that being able to account for the age of the sampled individuals is important.

Males and females did not differ in their feather mercury levels, but older birds exhibited higher mercury levels in all feather types except for tail feathers.

We found that mercury levels were significantly correlated across feather types within individuals, with those in dorsal and ventral feathers, both grown in the wintering area, also correlating with mercury levels in blood sampled during the breeding season.

Out now in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment: a study in which we assessed whether mercury levels vary among feather types within individual terns, how feather mercury levels relate to those in blood, and whether all levels vary with sex and age in a similar way: doi.org/10.1007/s106...

Out of 12 new registered birds on the 14th, 11 are female, bringing us to 23 males and 54 females. What?! Where are the males? They usually arrive slightly earlier and there are slightly more of them too, because natal dispersal seems to be female-biased.

Surprising too: we so far have registered 22 males and 43 females. The current age range is 4 - 19 years.

Wow, after 8 birds arrived on the 12th of April, 57 more arrived on the 13th! I've not seen an 'arrival-explosion' like it. The birds seem excited about it too, wasting no time between arrival, courtship and the start of 'nest building'.

In other lovely news: the first gull-billed terns have returned over the weekend too. You can follow their stories on the blog of @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social's website:

gelochelidon.de/blog/gull-bi...

Turns out Avelina arrived just an hour after Calderon did, and that the both of them have most registrations. So the updated guess is that the picture is of this couple that raised 3 fledglings in 2024 and 2 fledglings in 2025. :-)

As an update: 6 more birds were registered by the system yesterday, such that 8 birds are known to have arrived in total, with more spotted today. Synchronous, but not early, as the first-arrival summary-graph for the years 1994-2026 shows:

We'll keep you updated! :-)

Assortative mating for arrival time is a known part of the life history of the terns, anyway: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Calderon & Pricilla weren’t a pair in 2025, by the way. He bred with Avelina, she did with Kiron. But the terns usually do not share their boxes with birds they aren’t paired with, so perhaps these two early birds are considering sharing the season.

Both clearly are very successful breeders that performed better than average in these years, with that being impressive especially for Pricilla, because reproductive success usually starts out very poorly, before improving with age.

Calderon is an immigrant male of unknown age who received his pittag in 2023, and raised 7 chicks to fledging since. Pricilla is a 7-yr old female who started breeding at the colony in 2022 and raised 5 chicks since then.

Live from the field: they’re here! The first two registrations of the 2026 season are a fact and go to Calderon and Pricilla. ❤️

Join me & @olliepadget.bsky.social at @livuninews.bsky.social! #postdoc #seabird movement & navigation in response to environmental cues @ukri.org. Developing new loggers w/ micro-engineers & computer scientists @yorkuniversity.bsky.social. Job tinyurl.com/2zuzktv5 Press release tinyurl.com/2zuzktv5

The museum we designed and built at the field site, to share both our view on, and growing knowledge of, the Banter See common terns now has a sign, and is open for business. Opening times can be found here: www.wattenmeer-besucherzentrum.de/flussseeschw...

📢 Update: We’ve extended our survey deadline! During 2026, we will undertake a major renewal of the Movebank system. Help us build a more scalable, sustainable database for your projects. Your feedback will directly shape the future of Movebank. Survey: survey.academiccloud.de/f/221856?lan...

If you’d like to keep track of the work of the Senegal team, you can do so here: www.trektellen.nl/site/info/2634

In other good news: 20 birds were swab-tested for #avianinfluenza #HPAI, and all tested negative.

The other three Banter See birds were two males that hatched in 2024 and 2025 and that we have not seen since, as well as 4-yr old female Lou, who prospected at the colony in 2024 and 2025, but has not bred yet.

Among 480 (!!) birds caught by #TeamSAFRINGSénégal last night, there were 4 Banter See birds, including 5-yr old Piccolo, who prospected in 2023 and bred in 2024 and 2025, receiving a geolocator in 2025. After a quick check, he is now on his way to us! ❤️ Thanks to Bruno Portier for the photo!

If you enjoyed the paper below👇👇, you might also be interested in our symposium on “Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics in a Changing World” at the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ conference! The amazing Viktoriia Radchuk will be giving a talk, and we still have a few spots open, reach out to if interested! #NSO2026 🐦🌴🐝🌡️📉