New paper! We simulated foraging trips of Northern gannets at Bass Rock to decipher what information individuals use to keep returning to the same foraging patches. Memory was the strongest driver, but it wasn't the whole story. 🧵👇 doi.org/10.1186/s404... 1/5
Rob van Bemmelen
@robvanbemmelen.bsky.social
Dad, birder, sound recorder, ecologist mainly studying (North Sea) seabirds, tracking terns, skuas and phalaropes.
Finally published, is the outcome of surveys and HPAI detections in skua species in 2024/25. Detections as far south as Marguarite Bay. 👉 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Ik heb getekend tegen afzwakking van de Europese natuurbescherming. handsoffnature.eu#take-action
Hands Off Nature – Defend Europe’s Forests, Rivers & Wildlife
Stop the dismantling of European environmental protections. Stand up for forests, wildlife, clean air, and safe water - our nature depends on it.
handsoffnature.eu
Lesser black-backed gulls avoid offshore wind farms - but not because they are attracted by the fishing boats outside of those windfarms New article on #seabirds #ornithology besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @robvanbemmelen.bsky.social, @judyshamounb.bsky.social
Offshore wind farm avoidance by a discard‐feeding seabird is independent of local fishing activity
Fishing is not allowed within wind farms; therefore, discard-feeding seabirds may appear to avoid wind farm areas. We found that most Lesser Black-backed Gulls avoided the wind farm area, but not eac....
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Smoothed trend 1992-2025 of most Dutch butterflies from Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects. The color indicates the linear trend over the whole period. Each line starts at a value of 100. The black dot gives the 2025 index value.
De EU bereidt een cadeautje voor pesticidenreuzen voor. Dit is een en al een nachtmerrie voor de rest van ons. Ja, voor goedkeuring—voor altijd. Ja, zonder veiligheidstests. En, ja, dit is echt. Teken nu om het te stoppen. action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-12...
Bescherm ons voedsel tegen giftige pesticiden
De EU bereidt een cadeautje voor pesticidenreuzen voor. Dit is een en al een nachtmerrie voor de rest van ons. Een nieuw voorstel kan ervoor zorgen dat giftige pesticiden, waaronder glyfosaat, voor al...
action.wemove.eu
🧮 How many Arctic Jaegers are there around the world? 📝 An updated global estimate of breeding population size for this migratory seabird: doi.org/10.1017/S095... #BirdConservation #Ornithology #Research #Arctic #Skua #Jaeger #migration #population
1/ Arctic Skuas are on the UK Birds of Conservation Concern Red List. But new BTO-led research reveals just how much we don’t know about their numbers globally. Discover more. ⬇️ #Ornithology #Seabirds 📖 www.bto.org/Arctic-Skua-...
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Our team analysed the correlation of N deposition with numbers of territories of 112 Swiss breeding birds species. Insectivous and herbivorous species were more negatively associated with N deposistion, as well as ground-nesting species. Read more here: doi.org/10.1111/cobi...
Hey seabird folks - have you ever thought "*ANOTHER* talk about <species X>?!" So did we. So we reviewed 3000 conference abstracts to see which species get the spotlight. Huge work from @ingridpollet.bsky.social with me and @seabirdsentinel.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I'm super excited to share our new paper on Norwegian lemming genomics just published in @pnas.org!! Read the paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.... Summary ⬇️
Mass mortality of Black-legged Kittiwakes, Norway, 2023: more than 15,000 birds dead, population reduction of 50%. genotype EA-2022-BB 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Zoals verwacht komt de Ministeriële commissie Economie en Natuurherstel niet met een oplossing voor de stikstofproblematiek. Het kabinet kiest ervoor om de natuur verder te laten verslechteren en ondernemers nog eens 10 jaar in onzekerheid te laten zitten. nos.nl/artikel/2564...
Kabinet wil uitstoot stikstof in 2035 halveren
Vrijdag komt het kabinet met de contouren van het nieuwe stikstofbeleid. Leidend daarbij wordt de uitstoot van stikstof bij de bron, dus bij boeren en bedrijven zelf.
nos.nl
🚨Publication in @globalchangebio.bsky.social by Lameris et al. → Early snowmelt = earlier egg-laying, but only 2 waterfowl arrived earlier. → Over time, most arrived earlier—regardless of snowmelt or laying. → Why? Faster migration: shorter stopovers = earlier arrival. 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/gcb....
Migratory Birds Advance Spring Arrival and Egg‐Laying in the Arctic, Mostly by Travelling Faster
A warming climate is affecting the phenology of life on earth, including when birds migrate and start breeding. We show that earlier arrival is a general pattern also for birds travelling to the Arct...
doi.org
NEW PAPER in #ornithology shows that the survival of migratory #seabirds (Arctic skuas) has decreased in the last decades, but is not related to large-scale ocean indices: www.int-res.com/abstracts/me...
Working on avian vagrancy? @pauldufour80.bsky.social and myself are organising a symposium at the EOU Conference 2025 at Bangor University, Wales (UK) from 18-22 August 2025 #Ornithology please submit abstracts to: auth.oxfordabstracts.com?redirect=/st... 🪶🌍
Our paper is out, and it is distressing. Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century
Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in ...
science.org
New #OA paper in the #seabird journal (@theseabirdgroup.bsky.social)! We GPS-tracked Black-legged #Kittiwakes breeding on an offshore platform in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. In short, we show that they have a short foraging range compared to coastal... 1/6 www.seabirdgroup.org.uk/seabird-37
🚨NEW OPEN ACCESS PAPER🚨details how we delineated six #MarineFlyways using #seabird #tracking data & novel analytical methods ➡️ doi.org/10.1111/geb.70004 🧪 #ornithology #migration #BLScience @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social We are grateful to GOBI @iki-germany.bsky.social for funding the project 🧵1/5
Bustnes et al. The pollution fast-track to the Arctic: how southern wintering areas contribute to organochlorine loads in a migrant seabird breeding in the Arctic academic.oup.com/etc/advance-... #ornithology #teamskua
The pollution fast-track to the Arctic: how southern wintering areas contribute to organochlorine loads in a migrant seabird breeding in the Arctic
Abstract. This study examines how southern wintering areas may contribute to organochlorine (OCs) loads in arctic seabirds during breeding. Light-sensitive
academic.oup.com
🚨NEW OPEN ACCESS PAPER🚨details how we delineated six #MarineFlyways applying a novel approach onto #seabird #tracking data: doi.org/10.1111/geb.70004 🧪 See the short animation via: www.seabirdtracking.org/case-studies... explaining how the marine flyways can be a framework to support #conservation
The second paper, led by Kat Snell and Ines dos Santos (at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social), is about Arctic Skuas breeding at the Faroe Islands. Here, analysis of 24 years of ringing data suggests strong declines in the survival rates of both adults and juveniles. 1/3 doi.org/10.3354/meps...
Wintering, rather than breeding, oceanic conditions may modulate declining survival in a long-distance migratory seabird
KEY WORDS: Mortality · Carry-over effects · CMR modelling · Stercorarius parasiticus
doi.org
Happy to share two new papers on Arctic Skuas where I contributed. First: a paper led by Jan Ove Bustnes (@ninanatureresearch.bsky.social) on pollutants found in the blood of Arctic Skuas breeding on Svalbard and at Slettnes. Arctic Skuas show large variation... academic.oup.com/etc/advance-... 1/2
The pollution fast-track to the Arctic: how southern wintering areas contribute to organochlorine loads in a migrant seabird breeding in the Arctic
Abstract. This study examines how southern wintering areas may contribute to organochlorine (OCs) loads in arctic seabirds during breeding. Light-sensitive
academic.oup.com
Our new paper, based on data from 1,705 studies, shows that pesticides are toxic to organisms they are not intended to harm, including fungi, microbes, plants, insects, & vertebrates such as ourselves. Questions the wisdom of applying over 3 million tonnes of them every year...
Peatlands occupy just 3% of all land but contain more carbon than all of the world’s forests. Often overlooked: typically flat, wet, often inaccessible, not always picturesque & all the carbon they hold is hiding below the surface. 80% of the UK bogs are degraded by draining, overgrazing, burning.
World’s largely unprotected peatlands are ticking ‘carbon bomb’, warns study
Sobering. When I talk to people about long-term bird population declines in N America, I mention that the main cause is habitat loss, not climate change - yet. But new research shows that climate change is causing bird declines even in otherwise pristine places. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why
Populations have been falling for decades, even in tracts of forest undamaged by humans. Experts have spent two decades trying to understand what is going on
theguardian.com
A thread on quite how incredible the Texel Spectacled Eider record is, given that almost the entire world population (~250K) winters together around 62°00'N, 173°00'W in polynyas - gaps in the sea ice in the Bering Sea, like the ones below👇 🧵#Ornithology 1/
A Spectacled Eider off Texel in the Netherlands! Candidate 6th record for the Western Palearctic assuming it is not subsequently found to be close-ringed (they are kept and bred in the NL e.g. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWwQ..., www.dutchbirding.nl/gallery/deta...) waarneming.nl/observation/... 🪶
Seabird 36 is now live! Head to this link to take a read -> seabirdgroup.org.uk/seabird-36
Seabird 36 - Seabird Group
The Seabird Group was founded to promote and co-ordinate the study and conservation of seabirds. We organise conferences and publish the journal SEABIRD.
seabirdgroup.org.uk
Very happy to have this paper on Arctic Skuas finally out in 2024. Still two more PhD-chapters to go!
🕊️ **Migratory Patterns Unveiled** 🕊️ 5. **Synchronous Timing of Return**: Tracking Arctic skuas from various breeding populations, we discovered how they synchronize their return to breeding sites despite differing migration strategies. doi.org/10.1186/s404...