Rob van Bemmelen

@robvanbemmelen.bsky.social

Dad, birder, sound recorder, ecologist mainly studying (North Sea) seabirds, tracking terns, skuas and phalaropes.

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.

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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

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

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...

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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/

Spectacled Eider flocks in the Bering Sea: Source https://frontierscientists.com/2012/01/satellite-tracking-helps-russian-tanker-navigate-critical-sea-duck-habitat/Spectacled Eider flocks in the Bering Sea: Source https://frontierscientists.com/2012/01/satellite-tracking-helps-russian-tanker-navigate-critical-sea-duck-habitat/
Alexander Lees@alexanderlees.bsky.social · 2y ago

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/... 🪶