How does climate change affect waders? For Dunlin breeding around the Baltic, climate change brings higher water levels, more storms and flooded nests. Blog from 20 June 2021 🎂5️⃣ wadertales.wordpress.com/2021/06/20/d... Papers by @vmpakanen.bsky.social @koivulakari.bsky.social et al. #ornithology

Dunlin: tales from the Baltic

Veli-Matti Pakanen, Kari Koivula  and colleagues have been studying Finnish Dunlin for nearly twenty years. These are schinzii birds that breed in coastal grazing meadows around the Baltic Sea…

wadertales.wordpress.com

Surprise visitor from Siberia in our garden! Oriental turtle dove.

Nest failure in threatened #shorebirds has many reasons. Replacing eggs of vulnerable clutches with dummy eggs boosts nest survival of #Ruffs in grazed coastal meadows. New paper out 🎉 dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3... in @ecol-evol.bsky.social #conservation #ornithology

This work was led by freshly celebrated PhD Hanna Algora with vital contributions from @koivulakari.bsky.social @vmpakanen.bsky.social @jellybb.bsky.social, Kriszti Kupán and others

Start of breeding season 2026. Boreal owl incubating at 65° N.

Stoked about the new Replication Studies section in Behavioral Ecology? Me too! Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts! dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...

The value of close replications and how to get more of them: interview with Kate Laskowski

Welcome to our latest interview with the author of a recent interesting paper. Today’s interview was conducted by email with behavioral ecologist Kate Laskowski, first author ofLaskowski et a…

dynamicecology.wordpress.com

Interesting talk by @jellybb.bsky.social about the aberrant egg coloration in Ruff clutches. Blue eggs may affect nest survival, but fitness effects may be habitat dependent. @waderstudy.bsky.social IWSG Conference 2025 in Groningen (Netherlands) #IWSG2025 #waders #shorebirds

5/5 In addition, a huge effort is made to protect the #critically #endangered southern #dunlin. With expertise of Vroni Rohr-Bender and others, 26 chicks got an advantage be growing up in our aviary, before they got released back in the meadows, hopefully successfully #boosting the #population.

1/5 - What.an.increadible.fieldseason! Together with @koivulakari.bsky.social , @jelenasubotic.bsky.social , @chorlnev.bsky.social , @vmpakanen.bsky.social, Kristzi Kupan, Vroni Rohr-Bender and others we managed to find plenty of ruff nests (65!) and headstarted a bunch of Southern Dunlins (26!).

Time is up for my brief fieldwork stint at #Liminganlahti. I have to leave right at the hatching peak of the #ruffs but the work is left in the capable hands of a wonderful team.

Southern dunlin, endangered living dinosaur. #theropods, #ornithology, #waders

Ruff lekking: The co-display of a pale satellite and a court-defending independent morph increases male attractiveness. Lekking began here (65°N) in the first week of May and continues, even though most females are already incubating and the first chicks are expected to hatch any day now.

This year we spent long (and cold) nights out to capture #ruffs during peak #lekking. Each one ringed and fitted with a transmitter to help us track their movements and behavior. Thanks to the team for the effort and stamina it takes to pull this off 💤 @koivulakari.bsky.social @chorlnev.bsky.social

A female Ruff enters her nest — a tent-like shelter hiding her precious eggs. She’s unringed for now, but she’ll receive her bands once the chicks hatch. #waders #ornithology

Opera buffa? No, actually ruff male is dead serious in attracting females flying by to land at his lek. #waders #ornithology

Peekaboo! First boreal owl nest for this spring. #helmipöllö #ornithology

In the LATEST ISSUE of IBIS Disappearing aapa mires and why we should care: unnoticed climate change exacerbates drainage effects on birds | onlinelibrary.wiley.... Anthony D. Fox, Aleksi Lehikoinen | #ornithology 🪶

It's not real. It's not us. It's not bad. It's too hard to fix. It's too late. Just about every climate denial argument I've ever heard is a variant of one of these five categories, and each one is as bad as the next. Why? Because they all have the same goal: prevent action as long as possible.

In large meadows, female ruffs prefer to place their nests close to male leks, even though these are not necessarily the safest locations available #ornithology (Hanna Algora, @chorlnev.bsky.social, @jellybb.bsky.social @vmpakanen.bsky.social et al: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Nests, Threats, and Leks: Nonrandom Distributions of Nests in Ruffs (Calidris pugnax)

This project investigates the nest distribution of the ruff (Calidris pugnax), an endangered shorebird. Using satellite imaging, we established a suitable breeding area and analyzed the factors influ....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

How do female ruffs choose their nest location? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @koivulakari.bsky.social #ornithology

Increased wind flood frequency leads to decreased nest success of endangered waders in managed shore meadows | www.sciencedirect.co... | Biological Conservation | #ornithology 🪶

Our study with @chorlnev.bsky.social, @vmpakanen.bsky.social, @jellybb.bsky.social, and others, using long-term data on dunlins and ruffs, shows that wind floods are a serious threat to the reproduction of waders in the Baltic Sea shore meadows. #ornithology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A wonderful team effort to characterize the actions of HSD17B2, a gene that helps some #ruff males to dial down their testosterone levels, got published @science.org (1/n)

Science Magazine@science.org · 2y ago

A single gene underlies male mating morphs in ruff sandpipers, a new Science study finds. The results show how evolutionary changes in a single gene's structure, sequence, and regulation can drive significant diversity within a single species. Learn more in our new issue: https://scim.ag/4arzNmU

Hats off! (or rather PhD hat on?). James Tolliver overcame a lot of personal challenges to successfully defend his PhD today. Like the title of his thesis: "Ruff persistence...". Very proud that he has fledged!

Northern Finland (65°N) this afternoon after sunset. Polar stratospheric clouds.

Read up this amazing blog with fabulous ruff lekking videos from our last field season 🥰

Simon Vandepitte@simonvandepitte.bsky.social · 2y ago

Who says #nature #documentaries need classical music? In July I also worked on a project related to the #behavioural #ecology of #ruffs. Their #courtship #behaviour is memorizing. My new blog on my website tries to tries to convey this feeling. More: simonvandepitte.com/i-am-sexy-an...

Who says #nature #documentaries need classical music? In July I also worked on a project related to the #behavioural #ecology of #ruffs. Their #courtship #behaviour is memorizing. My new blog on my website tries to tries to convey this feeling. More: simonvandepitte.com/i-am-sexy-an...

Fieldwork delights. Lekking #ruffs trying to attract females at Liminka Bay, Finland.

Simon Vandepitte@simonvandepitte.bsky.social · 2y ago

Who says #nature #documentaries need classical music? In July I also worked on a project related to the #behavioural #ecology of #ruffs. Their #courtship #behaviour is memorizing. My new blog on my website tries to tries to convey this feeling. More: simonvandepitte.com/i-am-sexy-an...

New paper out in @rsocpublishing.bsky.social! Research from our group shows that males of the polygynous ruff visit many potential breeding sites within a breeding season, travelling up to 9000 km and visiting up to 23 different sites! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 1/7

At the end of last year, we had a flurry of accepted manuscripts that are going to be published over the next weeks. The first one is already out. Those tiny #Ruff 🐥 have personalities - wonderful work by Veronika Rohr published in Ethology doi.org/10.1111/eth.... 🧵 (1/7)

Sex and Morph Variation in Activity From Early Ontogeny to Maturity in Ruffs (Calidris pugnax)

We measured the activity (distance travelled in an open-field test) in young ruffs multiple times throughout their first two years of life. Besides the two sexes, ruffs feature three mating morphs (i...

doi.org