We had a great time at #ISBE2026 presenting our work on sociable weavers and enjoying so many inspiring talks! 💪🪺 Thanks to everyone who organised such a great conference, and to everyone for all the exciting discussions! 🐥

We are looking for two field managers‼️Starting end of August South Africa 🌍 If you have fieldwork experience and want a job with added responsibility of overseeing the field activities, see below for more information. 🐣 Deadline 15/06/2026 sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/... #fieldjobs

Very proud to share the cool methodological development led by Liliana Silva that greatly facilitates video-based behaviour analyses! 🙌 Tested on sociable weavers, blue and great tits! Great performance and 8x faster than manual analyses! 🤩 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Excited to share our new paper on infanticide in sociable weavers using 12 years of data! 🎉🐣 We found no evidence that infanticide provides direct reproductive benefits. Instead, our results suggest it may be driven by social competition. Read more here: peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....

A great week together in Portugal for our sociable weaver winter meeting! 🐥🐥🎉🏔️ Ended perfectly with trying to spot the Iberian wolf at Sierra de la Culebra in Spain 🐺🐾

Great #ASABWinter2025 conference in Edinburgh! Proud to be presenting our sociable weaver acoustics and social network results from two of our PhD students! 🎉 @asab.org

Exciting new database on cooperative breeding out now! 🪺 A big congratulations to everyone involved! 🎉 It's great to see sociable weavers featured in this cross-species effort to understand cooperation! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @co-breed.bsky.social

An integrative, peer‐reviewed and open‐source cooperative‐breeding database (Co‐BreeD)

Co-BreeD is the first updatable and open-source database dedicated to cooperative breeding. It enables continuous, non-binary measurement of cooperative breeding, transforming how we study breeding s...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Co-BreeD (Cooperative Breeding Database)@co-breed.bsky.social · 10mo ago

1/6 The Cooperative-Breeding Database (Co-BreeD) is alive! Co-BreeD covers key biological parameters relevant to cooperative breeding research in birds and mammals. Get your copy of this updateable & open-access database: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @animalecology.bsky.social

The BBC #Parenthood series joined us in Benfontein to film infanticide in sociable weavers for Ep. 3: Grassland🪺 It shows how complex (and sometimes brutal) parenthood can be! Huge thanks to everyone involved for capturing incredible footage and sharing these stories🎉 www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Parenthood - Everything you need to know about the wildlife series from filming locations to featured species and more

Sir David Attenborough returns to narrate amazing stories of dedication, ingenuity and sacrifice, as animal parents embark on the greatest challenge of all - raising their young

bbc.co.uk

🚨Field assistant job in South Africa working with sociable weavers for nest building observations🚨 😎Experienced in behavioural observations? 🪹🪶Enjoy studying nest building and birds? Find more information below! Applications close: 25/07/2025 sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/...

Building & vigilance observations assistant

applications are OPen estimated closing date : 2025-07-25 The Sociable Weaver Project is offering a position for a motivated field assistant with a keen interest in animal behaviour that will be in…

sociableweaverproject.com

Congratulations to @nicolasjsilva.bsky.social for publishing another chapter from his PhD! 🎉🪶 We show how deep learning can reveal differences across sexes in a seemingly monomorphic species 🐦🐦 Check it out here: doi.org/10.1016/j.an... #AnimalBehaviourJournal

Deep learning approach to detect and visualize sexual dimorphism in monomorphic species

Sex recognition is facilitated by dimorphism in some traits. However, humans often fail to find the traits that allow distinction between sexes in oth…

sciencedirect.com

Nicolas Silva@nicolasjsilva.bsky.social · last yr.

It is finally out! The second paper of my PhD with @sociableweaver.bsky.social! You want to test if the species you're working on is really monomorphic? You want to see what are the dimorphic parts of it? Have a look to our work at #AnimalBehaviourJournal 😉 See more at => doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

🚨Field assistant job in South Africa working with sociable weavers 🚨 🔌Experienced in electronics? 🏷️Enjoy working with RFID technology? 🪶Like working with birds? Find more information below! Applications close on 08/06/2025 sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/... #fieldwork #ornithology

Feeding station and breeding monitoring assistant

applications arE OPEN estimated closing date : 2025-06-08 The Sociable Weaver Project uses several automatic feeding stations to collect data on social network associations. These feeding stations …

sociableweaverproject.com

Fascinating talk from Helga Fourie from CIBIO Portugal at the #ASABSpring2025 conference: Proximity promotes social partner choice in weaver birds. #asab

🐦 We are recruiting two field managers to work with us in South Africa on the fantastic sociable weaver system 🐦 Tasks include breeding monitoring and overseeing the field team activities 🪶 Deadline for applications: 20/04/2025 For more information: sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/...

Field managers

applications ARE OPEN estimated Closing date : 2025-04-20 Every year, the Sociable Weaver Project hires 2 field managers to oversee different aspects of the project’s fieldwork and monitor re…

sociableweaverproject.com

In this paper, we compared three approaches: (1) strict time-window, (2) co-occurrence, and (3) arrival time methods to define associations for house sparrows on Lundy Island, UK, and Broken Hill, Australia; great tits in Wytham Woods, UK; and sociable weavers in Benfontein National Park.

To celebrate Darwin Day, we support the call for strengthening the teaching of evolution at schools in Portugal! 🪶 Em modo de celebrar o dia de Darwin, queremos mostrar o nosso apoio no ensino da matéria de Evolução no ensino em Portugal! www.publico.pt/2025/02/12/c...

A evolução no dia a dia – e a urgência de a ensinar no ensino básico

Em Portugal, muitos alunos chegam ao ensino superior sem uma compreensão sólida do conceito de evolução e sem conseguir aplicá-lo a questões do dia a dia.

publico.pt

🎉This December, we celebrate the brilliant PhD defenses of two theses on sexual selection in weavers! 🎉 Congratulations to Dr Nicolas Silva for his work on sexual selection in genetically monogamous and monomorphic sociable weavers!🐦💡

🔌Interested in fieldwork and electronics?🔋 We need a tech-savvy bird enthusiast to manage our RFID feeding stations for sociable weavers! 🗓️ Start: Early Jan 2025 Experience with electronics is needed for this position For more information see here: sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/...

🚨Job opening🚨 We are hiring two managers to help with data collection and oversee fieldwork on sociable weavers in South Africa! Includes breeding monitoring 🗓️ Start: Feb 2025 📅 Apply by: End of Nov Applications until the end of November: sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/...

Sociable weaver nests & pygmy falcons stealing the show at Tswalu & the KRC! 🤩 Big thanks to Robert Thomson, Sithabile Khumalo, Lesedi Moagi, Marta Manser, Tim Clutton-Brock and Walt Jubber for hosting Rita Covas. It was a fantastic trip in all ways!