Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin
12.02.2026 16:31
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Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin
This needs to blow up in the bird feed please 🪶
Shoutout to coauthors @davetoews.bsky.social, @bvdbirds.bsky.social, @birdersci.bsky.social, Mads Moore and Alan Brelsford for helping make this project possible!
Pressure data also allowed us to calculate flight altitude throughout the year—and in a cool twist we found that the max altitude of our birds matched the altitude at which @catieivy.bsky.social found captive MYWA would maintain flight in a hypobaric wind tunnel!
Geolocation using atmospheric pressure is a really exciting new avenue for tracking small songbirds, and we found that using pressure allowed us to characterize the migrations of these birds at a much finer scale than using traditional light level methods.
While not many small songbirds have been tracked from this region, these MYWA followed a similar route to blackpoll warblers (minus the trans-Atlantic flight!). The routes of both these species may be retracing historical paths of range expansion from glacial refugia after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Stable isotopes in feathers collected from 167 MYWA breeding across northwestern North America showed that only a small proportion of birds in each pop. may migrate to the Pacific Coast. MYWA are often thought of as relatively short distance migrants, but not so in these high latitude populations!
Left panel: A small black, grey, white and yellow songbird wearing a tracking backpack. Right panel: A map of North America showing a migration track beginning in Alaska, crossing east across the boreal forest of Canada, and then turning south to the coast of Texas before retracing the path north.
Out now in Movement Ecology: We used multi-sensor geolocators to track myrtle warblers breeding in Alaska and found that they migrated much farther than expected to the Gulf Coast—rather than to the closer Pacific Coast non-breeding area 🪶🧵 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
A comic graphical abstract by illustrator Rush Dhillon showing two wood warblers and their spider prey. The graphs illustrate the read abundance of these spiders in the warbler's fecal samples.
I could give you a great summary of our new warbler diet paper… but if a picture says a thousand words, this awesome graphical abstract by @rushstudio.bsky.social tells the whole story. 🦉🧪
academic.oup.com/auk/article/...
semi-regular reminder that ICE was only created in 2003
when you are asked to imagine a world without ICE, you're basically being asked to remember where you were when Lilo & Stitch came out
Many people holding ICE protest signs in wintery roadside
Abolish ICE
No ICE
Human Beings are not illegal/ justice for Renee Good
#Fairbanks #Alaska at -30F protests against ICE. We remember Renee Good and the many, many hurt and stolen.
Standing here loving cold, not murder, not abductions, and not vice.
I had a blast talking with @drscottataylor.bsky.social on the most recent episode of Okay, but...birds. Tune in for my hot take on why Hudsonian Godwits are far superior to Arctic Terns as migratory birds! (I welcome any & all angry comments from tern supporters 😉)
okaybutbirds.com/episodes/e5
Science communication is more siloed than ever - platforms, algorithms, and lack of in-person contact can cost us opportunities to connect with one another about science. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social talks about how we, as scientists, can expand our audiences and connect with our communities. (1/2)
A list of top played board games - ark nova, dune, lure, skull king, calico, wingspan, cascades, birdwatcher, and diatoms were the top games. 126 total plays, h index of 4, 23 games, 13 new, 42 players, 8 locations
It’s very clear which game(s) my partner and i have a 50/50 winning streak at 🐘🪱 Most fun location I played at this year was jury duty #bgstats2025 @bgstatsapp.bsky.social
Just in time for the holidays, I had a fun chat with @drscottataylor.bsky.social about splits and lumps… and some of the other controversies roiling avian taxonomy 🤓
🦉🧪
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...
New paper out. If you like colorful birds, hybridization, and phylogenetics, read on! 🧵https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003501
Nighttime photo of a lake flanked by silhouetted hills
Long Pond in Acadia NP about an hour after sunset tonight, on the eve of a snowstorm. The light reflecting off of the waves in the foreground is actually moonlight, not the remnants of twilight in the distance.
Look at that textbook, U-shaped glacial trough. *chef kiss*
Our paper on tinamou evolution is finally out in @systbiol.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.
A pika sits on a mossy rock.
Tighter crop of the same pika, focusing on its head.
An even tighter crop, focusing more on the pika's eye.
An extremely tight crop of the pika's eye, emphasizing their reflection of an early morning mountain scene.
"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?"
Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.
Do you like songbirds? Are you concerned about how wildfire smoke may impact their physiology?
I'm searching for graduate students who are interested in looking at the effect of wildfire smoke on songbird physiology! Come join my lab @usaskartsci.bsky.social!
research-groups.usask.ca/ivy-lab/
Do appreciate a line dancing break during the #Gritty5k @nhl-flyers.bsky.social
Thanks @wilsonornithsoc.bsky.social for inviting me to share my story about how unexpected challenges can lead towards new discoveries!
The lack of mainstream coverage of regular huge protests reminds me of a talk from a Twitter employees who explained that they had to drop BLM off the Trending Tags section because otherwise it would have been there permanently. The modern media environment has no appetite for sustained movements.
Video of Columbia Heights residents driving ICE agents out of their area. source: www.instagram.com/reel/DNjkvLQ...
Congrats to @stephszarmach.bsky.social on receiving your wizzarding robes this weekend from @psubiodept.bsky.social! Enjoy the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. They are very lucky to have you!
Thanks, Dave!
New paper published! How does a mid-size river impact gene flow and population structure, including when there is an adaptive sexual trait present on one bank but not the other? With Peri Bolton, Robb Brumfield (@limpkin.bsky.social), Jerry Wilkinson, and Mike Braun.
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
"The Nazis... imagined their targets would self-deport. Once the myth of self-deportation collapsed, they turned to more punitive measures. On Tuesday, Noem similarly noted the Everglades camp was meant to frighten immigrants into self-deporting. 'If you don’t,' she said, 'you may end up here.'"
