A female Western Gull was recorded riding 150km in a garbage truck from San Francisco to a compost facility in Central CA, probably to forage. TWICE. An innovator, an icon, a genius. This is one of my favorite @waterbirdsociety.bsky.social papers I've ever handled as managing editor #ornithology

British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU)@bou.org.uk · last yr.

The First GPS Observation of a Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) Riding in a Long-Haul Garbage Transfer Truck | doi.org/10.1675/063.... | Waterbirds | #ornithology 🪶

ETHOLOGY: How do breeding common terns react to novelty? 🐦🪺🔺😲 Castano et al. find that females take consistently longer than males to return to the nest after encountering a novel object—and that responses vary by reproductive stage but not age. #AnimalBehavior #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1111/eth....

Individual Behavioral Responses to Novel Stimuli in Breeding Common Terns (Sterna hirundo)

We analyzed behavioral responses of 42 breeding terns to novel stimuli, considering intrinsic characteristics. The response was repeatable, stronger (i.e., individuals approached slower) in females a...

doi.org

She'd do great in Montreal.

Common Tern Project@commonternproject.bsky.social · last yr.

Here’s a video of a fun pilot study on tern personality aspects, in which Melina tested how the birds respond to a novel object placed at their nest. Linea from nest 431 did not care much about an orange cone making an appearance. :-)

I don't know a lot about this fellow, but I feel like I wouldn't mind being supervised by him. Viinistu, Estonia.

A great summary of Fred's recent work!

Dr. Glenn Tattersall@tattersallg.bsky.social · last yr.

Under the Arctic Sun: Seabirds in the Heat of Climate Change As the Arctic warms at an alarming pace, we’re learning that even cold-adapted species like the thick-billed murre aren’t immune to rising temperatures. Our latest study, led by Fred Tremblay from Dr. Kyle Elliot’s lab at McGill adds to…

The #Arctic might be a cold place, but microclimates can get HOT! The cliffs where murres nest can get to a whopping 46.5°C in the full sun. New work by MSc student Frederique Tremblay, @emilyschoy.bsky.social, @tattersallg.bsky.social & many others available free: doi.org/10.1016/j.cb...

A new use of the asterisk in the paper author list for credit assignment

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/

The Ivy Lab! - Welcome to the Ivy Lab!

research-groups.usask.ca

Eulachon time! All GPS-tracked Middleton kittiwakes are off to the Copper River Delta for eulachon oil, the same stuff that made the Chugach some of the healthiest First Nations on the coast (& which they called "saak"). Thanks to Alexia Nezondet for the updates!

A bit disingenuous: "No effect of carrying a... harness... on energy expenditure" & "We did not find any evidence for an effect of carrying a VHF radio transmitter on energy expenditure (p = 0.20; Fig. 1)." The increase in flight costs is 4%--small perhaps, but not "no effect" or "no evidence".

British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU)@bou.org.uk · last yr.

No effect of carrying a leg-loop harness mounted radio transmitter on flight energy expenditure of a small migratory songbird | journal.afonet.org/v... | Journal of Field Ornithology | #ornithology 🪶

Talk about entitled. This showed up at #MiddletonIsland. 99.3% of Instagram seabird pics, Best flight performance of any bird* & Starred alongside Robin Williams. Still unwilling to share the limelight with a few ol' cormorants. *Highest wing-loading #PuffinPrivilege #PuffinPeopleAreTheWorst

Arrival at #MiddletonIsland in the rain. Every year the undergrads seem to get younger.

Watch what happens. Changes in the age of #Arctic sea ice during springtime... Note that younger sea ice is usually thinner and more vulnerable to melting. Data from doi.org/10.5067/UTAV...

C21 laid the first egg again & on the same day (May 7th), at least two weeks before the rest of the colony. Hopefully the egg does better than last year's! #MiddletonIsland #EarlyBirdIsntAlwaysBetter

Fields of plastic: gulls obtained plastic from farmland as often as the ocean, challenging our original assumptions that plastics are a marine problem. A new paper out by an excellent team, led by @mcgilluniversity.bsky.social undergrad Sofia Higgs.

@raphael-lavoie-ec.bsky.social · last yr.

Here is our latest paper on plastic debris in herring gulls in the St. Lawrence led by Sofia Higgs. We found that plastic occurrence is linked to breeding stage. Thanks to Christina Petalas, @movementecology.bsky.social and Jennifer Provencher authors.elsevier.com/a/1k%7EHn,as...

Hey! Are you an American considering a PhD or a postdoc, and the funding / academic situation just went absolutely bonkers? Canada's federal funding awards just added eligibility for international applicants if at Cdn institutions. www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NewsDetail-D...

Data from 600+ tracked individual birds show that each summer, seabirds bring Hg across the Arctic from hotspots off the Canadian coast. Shows the power of international collaboration & the vision of Celine Albert, Jerome Fort & SEATRACK. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

GPS tracking reveals that kittiwakes ingest indigo-dyed plastic fibers in the Gulf of Alaska & feed them to their young. Our most recent paper out #OpenAccess below, led by Paolo Tremolada & Univ Milan. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

First field work of 2024, helping Christina Petalas & crew attach GPS to herring gulls to study origin of plastics-related contaminants. Great to be out & do field work close to home!

April 2024 #Arctic sea ice extent was the 16th lowest on record. This was 570,000 km² below the 1981-2010 average. April ice extent is decreasing at about 2.44% per decade. Data: nsidc.org/data/seaice_... More context on these numbers: zacklabe.com/climate-viz-...

Undergrads made an app to track bird window collisions around campus to find (& remedy) hotspots. (Exhibit A: photos around the CC building). Like the FLAP app, but at a local scale. Have others tried anything similar?

Do songbirds adjust their diet for moult (protein) or migration (energy)? Our #OpenAccess paper using fecal eDNA at a stopover suggests yes! Undergrad-led paper by Ana Blanc-Benigeri w/ fantastic supporting cast of Vanessa Poirier, Barbara Frei & Desiree Narango www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Brainstorming ideas for improving biodiversity monitoring via undergrad courses. Anyone out there have good ideas?

Always rewarding to pull garlic mustard, but does seem like we're just holding back the tide. Every year, it just comes up worse than before.

Fantastic news, and kudos to the many people who've worked so hard for this!

Marco Festa-Bianchet 🇨🇦@marcofesta.bsky.social · 2y ago

Canada federal budget: finally an increase in scholarship and fellowship after more than 20 years. Not enough to keep pace with inflation, but possibly lifted over the poverty line in much of Canada, at least for PhD.

It's almost that time of year! A short video on the loon monitoring at Kenauk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NC...

Impressive bee guide for campus created by undergrad Amicie Lavault. I might even be able to identify insects correctly for once! High res version: shorturl.at/jlEIL

All-auk-ation of foraging space by time & depth [not foraging range] in three auks in #Quebec. Exciting new paper led by Masters student Christina Petalas in collaboration with Raphael Lavoie. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Loving Kadogawa, Japan: a city obsessed with alcids (or at least one alcid, Japanese Murrelet, with the world's largest colony just offshore). Definitely worthy of my first Bluesky post!