Michael Roast

A nice visual, and a worthwhile one to remember when considering gaps and biases in biodiversity data in Australia 🦘🌱

Nearly 70% of the population lives in a greater capital city, meaning that incidental observations of animals and plants outside of those areas are rare and valuable
🧪🌏📊

The Call for Proposals for #IMCC8 in Edinburgh, Scotland has been extended until 20 March!
With over 800 delegates, IMCC is the world’s largest gathering dedicated to ocean conservation.
Make Marine Science Matter!
Learn more: conbio.org/mini-sites/i...
@scbmarine.bsky.social
#marinescience 🦑🌍🐠

The Call for Abstracts for ACCB 2026 in Lagos, Nigeria is now open!
Deadline: 30 May, 2026
We hope to see you in Lagos!
conbio.org/mini-sites/a...
#conservation #ACCB2026 #Nigeria 🌍

Main foraging areas (75% AKDE) of male Goshawks foraging exclusively in forest (A), in forest and farmland (B), and in forest and town (C). Foraging areas of individual birds are indicated by different colours. The town of Hajnówka is shown in grey. White dots indicate known active Goshawk nests.

Several male Goshawks breeding deep in Poland's Białowieża Forest 'routinely travelled up to 20 km to hunt feral pigeons in a town' with the authors concluding that 'urban environments shape the foraging behaviour of raptors even within primeval forests' #ornithology 🌍 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

✳️ #SpecialIssue call for papers ✳️

We are accepting submissions for a NEW special issue: Applications of mechanistic #modelling in biodiversity conservation 🖥️🌎

Edited by Sean Tomlinson & Brian Helmuth

Full info and submission instructions ➡️ academic.oup.com/conphys/page...

@sebiology.bsky.social

🚨A great PhD opportunity at University of Vienna working with caimans in French Guiana 🐊

🚨Deadline extension!🚨

💡 You now have until the 8th of March to apply to join us as an Associate Editor!

🔎Find out more and apply here
👉️https://buff.ly/cIwdUMx

🧪🌍️

🗓️Complete schedule for this term, where we will have speakers covering higher-order interactions, metabolic scaling, niche dimensionalty, coexistence and more!

Look forward to seeing you there! All details and Zoom link: iite.info/seminar/

ID guide for these globetrotting rodents! 🌍🦫 (Coypu are invasive in Europe and North America)

I've seen so many coypu photos used in beaver articles recently. If you're a science communicator or a journalist, take a moment to familiarise yourself with the differences. - It may be handy!

#SciComm

Less than a month to apply to join the BES editorial board as an Associate editor!🌳🌍 📖

If you're interested in contributing to any of the BES journals, check out the link below 👇

buff.ly/6ymRGcB

I was just wondering the other day where all the salt on the roads goes after winter…

Wigeon tagging at Abberton Reservoir to shed light on wintering and migration patterns A new collaborative project at Abberton Reservoir in Essex is ringing and tracking Eurasian Wigeon to gain fresh insights into how these migratory ducks use landscapes for feeding, roosting and navigating threats during the winter months.

A project at Abberton Reservoir in Essex has begun colour-ringing and tracking Eurasian Wigeon in an effort to better understand how the species uses landscapes during the winter and beyond:

🚨 PhD offer (please share)
Fascinated by bird migration and movement ecology? 🦜🌍 Join us at @vogelwarte.bsky.social to study annual cycle energetics with multi-sensor loggers in multiple species

Deadline: 20 Feb 2026
Starting: June 2026
Supervision: Martins Briedis & me

Info: tinyurl.com/2dbv9nzh

A plea from an editor:

postdocs & grad students who want to review manuscripts, please (!) have an online presence with your current email. I try to solicit reviews from ECRs, but we all move a lot, and it's hard to know if we'll be able to reach you at the email address on your last paper 🧪🌍

It’s Penguin Awareness Day which seems like a great excuse to post the greatest ever Wikipedia edit.

📢 NOMINATE FOR BOU COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

➡️ Awards Nominations Committee
➡️ Engagement Committee
➡️ IBIS Management Committee
➡️ Meetings Committee
➡️ Records Committee

Plus NEW Committee Shadowing Scheme

Full details: bou.org.uk/about-the...

#ornithology 🪶

BES grant application is now open. Image shows a diver photographing a large whale shark underwater, with the British Ecological Society logo.

We are now accepting grant applications to fund ecological research and outreach worldwide.

⏰Apply before 10 March 2026!

Find out what grants you can apply to 👇
https://f.mtr.cool/cucxadvxjq

🧪🌍

Flapper skates make a recovery in Scottish waters Research by Heriot-Watt University suggests that flapper skate numbers are on the increase.

Flapper skates make a recovery in Scottish waters - BBC News

Can we learn from the UK’s guerrilla rewilding movement? 🌎🌐🧪 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

#AI is transforming #ecology — but at what cost? A new #Nature piece warns that as models, drones & remote sensing boom, many scientists are spending less time outdoors (“I rarely get outside”). Are we losing essential natural-history insight? 🌿🤖
🧪🌍🌐
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Seabird Video Footage as a Learning Resource for Seawatchers During the last few years significant progress has been made in improving our understanding of identification criteria and distribution of previously problematic seabird species. This progress has …

For ID purposes videos can be great for familiarising yourself with seabird flight actions, structure, etc. but it’s a pain tracking down useful clips. I’ve collated video links for various N Atlantic species here #seabirds #seawatching #birding #birdID

chatterstanes.wordpress.com/2025/12/23/s...

No detectable deployment impacts of solar‐powered GPS devices for long‐term use on a small shorebird Portable devices, or biologgers, attached to animals are designed to record data on unobservable aspects of animal behaviour, physiology and ecology. However, wearing such devices is expected to be c...

New research in @avianbiology.bsky.social:
"No detectable deployment impacts of solar-powered GPS devices for long-term use on a small shorebird"

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

#Shorebird #Wader #GPS #Reproduction
@roasty247.bsky.social

Last years field assistant holding a Manx Shearwater on the isle of Rum (under a towel), retrieving a GPS device after a bird has returned from a foraging trip!

We are looking to hire a Seabird Field Assistant for 2026 for our Manx Shearwater research project.

Please share this to anyone who'd like to get out in the field this summer and learn about biotelemetry, bird handling and research into animal behaviour.

drive.google.com/file/d/1SGZt...

Maio Shorebird Conservation logo, with Kentish Plover and salt piles of Salinas do Porto Inglês

🧵5/5 Many thanks to co-authors @gcmcdon.bsky.social, Tamás Székely, András Kosztolányi and Ivan Maggini, in addition Fundaçao Maio Biodiversidade (FMB) for support during fieldwork!

doi.org/10.1002/jav....

A comparison of nest outcomes in tagged and untagged control groups of Kentish Plovers during the 2023 breeding season.

Resighting rates of tagged and untagged Kentish Plovers 4-5 months after the deployment period (indicative of apparent survival). There are no apparent differences when considering visual resighting rates only. Several additional tagged individuals were not seen, but survival was inferred by remote detection of the GPS tag with a hub device that downloaded movement data.

🧵4/5 Lastly, we found no differences in reproductive success or apparent survival between tagged and untagged control groups of Kentish Plovers through detailed reproductive monitoring and extensive visual surveys 4-5 months post-deployment.

doi.org/10.1002/jav....

Panel of graphs showing no significant differences in incubation behaviours or nest attendance between Kentish Plovers in tagged and untagged control groups

Example nest camera deployment with a camouflaged camera place around 40cm from the nest

🧵3/5 We also found no differences in incubation behaviours or nest attendance between Kentish Plovers in tagged and untagged control groups as monitored with nest cameras.

doi.org/10.1002/jav....

Kentish Plover foraging with a GPS tag on its back

🧵2/5 We found no detectable differences in Kentish Plover general behaviour assessed with time-budget assays of tagged individuals compared to untagged control individuals.

doi.org/10.1002/jav....

Kentish Plover with a solar-powered GPS tag just before release, Maio, Cape Verde

Kentish Plover with a solar-powered GPS tag just before release after a nocturnal capture, Maio, Cape Verde

🧵1/5 Our new paper is now published in @avianbiology.bsky.social! The first GPS tagging study of Kentish Plovers in Maio investigated the potential impact of tagging, finding no detectable impacts across multiple aspects of behaviour, reproduction & survival.

doi.org/10.1002/jav....

A solitary Lapwing stands in the grass.

New PhD opportunity:

Balancing the trade-offs between conservation and restoration in woodland creation and wader protection

Details here: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

@chrissuthy.bsky.social
@ps-wildlife-res.bsky.social
@naturescot.bsky.social
@rspbscience.bsky.social

📷Ben Andrew

European robin. Photo: Finja Strehmann

Fig. 3 from the article: the predicted H/L values of the model on potentially incubating birds.

NEW PAPER: machine learning and bird physiology: general patterns of heterophil/lymphocyte ratio with respect to age, sex and breeding status across a forest bird community.

➡️ vist.ly/3n4gki7

#ornithology #birds #disease #conservation #hematology 🪶