The Banter See season is slowly drawing to a close. The first day of August ended with 717 birds being registered. Last year this time that number was 477.

We branched out a little and contributed mercury measurements to this study on Arctic barnacle geese by Matteo Schiavinato et al, published in Environmental Pollution: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

It looks like the first logger bird of the project we share with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social has left the continent. L38, after short stopovers in the Netherlands and France, was last recorded in Andalusia on the 25th of July. No more data points until next spring, I suppose.

how does seasonal migration evolve? this question is to the heart of our focus and here we use common garden approach to characterise the amount of seasonal change in chromatin accessibility in ancestral migratory and derived resident populations of the Eurasian blackcap doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

Although the GPS loggers are teaching us lots of really cool things about the members of Central Europe's last gull-billed tern colony, sometimes the news is just the saddest:

The good news just keeps coming and coming today. Look at these sensational data provided by the tracking project we have with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social!

Two photos that make us very happy this morning – story below. :-)

New paper out!🥳 Here, we used a multi-biomarker approach to evaluate the ecotoxicological status of great tit (Parus major) populations from areas with different anthropogenic impacts. More information can be found here👇 doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

See that cute gull-billed tern chick thinking of leaving the safety of the frog- and electric fence that allowed it to grow up behind? Well, it did, and with a logger, so that you can also see its first trip away from the colony on the right. ❤️

congratulations @pauldufour80.bsky.social for so elegantly and efficiently orchestrating such a big flock of species (and collaborators). thanks for inviting #blackcaps and #robins to be a part of it.

Paul Dufour@pauldufour80.bsky.social · 4w ago

🐦🌙 Happy to see this big collaborative paper out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We address a seemingly simple question using geolocator data collected across many species and individuals: how much of bird migration actually happens at night? www.cell.com/current-biol... A short🧵

🐦🌙 Happy to see this big collaborative paper out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We address a seemingly simple question using geolocator data collected across many species and individuals: how much of bird migration actually happens at night? www.cell.com/current-biol... A short🧵

Out now & open access in Avian Pathology - a collaborative paper showing how highly pathogenic avian influenza (clade 2.3.4.4b euBB) was introduced, and led to high mortality, in breeding colonies of black-headed gulls and common terns in Germany in 2023: doi.org/10.1080/0307...

From migrants to residents: Genomic insights into adaptive strategies in European robins (Erithacus rubecula) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.26.734870v1

Register now: 159th DOG Annual Meeting 2026 in Mainz The 159th Annual Meeting of the German Ornithologists' Society will take place from 16th to 20th September 2026 at the University of Mainz. Registration for participation in the conference is possible until 14 August. www.do-g.de/veranstalten...

we won! 🏆 kids4kids was awarded the open-science-prize from UG (Unversitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg) tinyurl.com/356mmf6m @ifv-whv.bsky.social we’re incredibly happy and grateful for this recognition. It really means a lot to see our passion project celebrated

Chick sampling was closely supervised by Ariella, this weekend. Ariella hatched in 2022, prospected in 2024, then started breeding with Vedran in 2025. Last year they fledged 1 chick, and this year things are looking good for fledging 2. 🥰

Talking about the chicks... they are doing amazing! There is plenty of food around, so they are growing up fast, with the first ones having fledged this week and many more getting ready to follow that example.

After last year’s successful pilot study, GPS-tracking @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social's birds, we’re back at it this year. The lovely bird @harrykuipers.bsky.social photographed is L39, a 5-yr old female, breeding with 4-yr old R75 on nest 8. She laid two eggs that both hatched successfully.

A few days after successfully defending my PhD, another chapter of my thesis is out in Environmental Toxicology!🥳 Here, we show that bird embryos actively mobilize Hg from eggshells, key for better understanding Hg impact on wildlife. More information can be found here👇 doi.org/10.1002/tox....

Experimental Evidence for Mobilization of Mercury From the Eggshell by the Developing Embryo in an Avian Model Organism

Of the many pollutants wildlife is exposed to, mercury ranks among the most toxic. In birds, mercury does not only accumulate within generations, but also is transferred across generations via matern...

doi.org

Hosted 25 kids at the museum this morning. 10 interviews are in the pocket, and the next event is planned too. One of the kids drew me this card as a thank-you. Mission accomplished. :-)

Excited to celebrate the opening of the Kids4Kids Mobile Exhibition on Bird Migration with @genmig.bsky.social ! 🐦🎙 A project where children communicate science to their peers through podcasts, interactive exhibits, and a VR journey following a robin's migration.🌍✨ #Kids4Kids

awesome work by @junishigohoka.bsky.social highlighting the underappreciated role of shifting balancing selection. jun used demography inference, pogen simulation under our blackcap demography, and ABC to (i) identify the type of balancing selection and (ii) estimate its spatially varying parameters

Jun Ishigohoka@junishigohoka.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Paper alert!🧬🐦💻 Divergent selection is the textbook explanation for narrow inversion clines. Our blackcap inversion cline doesn't fit: it is wide, and the inversion is always the rarer arrangement. We show that negative frequency-dependent selection shifting between populations underlies this!

impressive thesis, amazing defense talk and utterly gorgeous hat! huge, huge congratulations, Matteo, fly on! it was a pleasure having had you with us @ifv-whv.bsky.social 🪶🪺🐦🧬

Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland'@ifv-whv.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Huge congratulations to @matteobeccardi.bsky.social on successfully defending his PhD thesis "Intrinsic and extrinsic factors shaping individual quality in birds"!!!🐦🥚🐣🤔🎓 🎉 Cheers to the next chapter!!!🍾🍾🍾

Huge congratulations to @matteobeccardi.bsky.social on successfully defending his PhD thesis "Intrinsic and extrinsic factors shaping individual quality in birds"!!!🐦🥚🐣🤔🎓 🎉 Cheers to the next chapter!!!🍾🍾🍾

Piro et al. Tracking of adult males and females across a migratory divide: migration strategies of a western baltic common tern (Sterna hirundo) population link.springer.com/article/10.1... #ornithology #seabirds

Tracking of adult males and females across a migratory divide: migration strategies of a western baltic common tern (Sterna hirundo) population - Movement Ecology

Background European Common Terns’ migration routes along the eastern Atlantic flyway and wintering areas in western and southern Africa were identified in ringing studies. Recent tracking studies reve...

link.springer.com

The 2-year-olds have started to arrive en masse and, with 83, now make up 18% of the registered birds at the colony. At 470 of those, we are exactly 70 above the number we had this time last year. Food is looking good too, and the chicks are growing nicely. ❤️

Migratory birds perform extraordinary journeys—but we still don’t fully understand how they do it. #TiiaKärkkäinen, @pablosalmon.bsky.social & @barbarahelm.bsky.social reveal why the field of migration physiology is still wide open for new discoveries ➡️ vist.ly/56fr7 #ornithology

Hatching has started at @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social's colony site too. ❤️

The Banter See breeding season in numbers so far: 226 males and 210 females (aged 2 - 25) have been registered, 319 clutches have been produced, 257 chicks have hatched, 93 blood samples have been collected and 48 birds have been caught for our geolocator-project.

Fresh as can be. Hatching has started at the Banter See common tern colony. ❤️