Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 3h

It’s been brilliant to see undergraduates using the building this first full week

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Another first for Dorset at the Swannery?! Quite an autumn you guys are having

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

New work from @devisatarkar.bsky.social et al on how effects of climate variability- particularly more unusual events - depend on developmental stage & prevailing conditions in Wytham Woods great tits.

Devi Satarkar @devisatarkar.bsky.social · 1d

New preprint! 🪶

We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️

With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

a 14 day old great tit nestling, ringed for individual identification

Figure from the paper showing that extreme climatic events interact with ambient climatic conditions and breeding timing within a season, in a developmental stage-specific manner, to influence nestling growth in great tits

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Devi Satarkar @devisatarkar.bsky.social · 1d

New preprint! 🪶

We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️

With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

The paper shows that the problem is strongest for ‘short’ duration lists so suggests some possible correction possible.

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, very much a potential issue, I think. Standardised, randomly allocated, transects/counts seems the best way round this, but even here can be potential bias, as a former PhD student of mine @wenyuanzhang.com showed here. But the first step is to quantify the biases
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Habitat change and biased sampling influence estimation of diversity trends

Zhang et al. demonstrate that data gaps in longitudinal bird surveys are often associated with habitat changes. While habitat changes affect biodiversity trends, they can lead to failure to record bio...

www.cell.com

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Paper offline for some reason, so can't check but maybe @louisbackstrom.bsky.social can answer

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

They show that this is plausibly explained by observations of rare (or otherwise appealing) species leading to a greater probability of initiating a list

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Large citizen science datasets are powerful tools for biodiversity science, but they may have biases. Nice new paper from @louisbackstrom.bsky.social et al. showing that for eBird and Birdtrack lists there is a tendency for rare species to be over-represented
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Woah! Quite a bird to have seen....

Paul Dufour @pauldufour80.bsky.social · 1d

What a stunning bird to come across today: the rare dark morph of the Atlantic Islands subspecies of the Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla heineken)!

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Last one in the UK 40 years ago!

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 2d

A Little Curlew on Öland in Sweden on Saturday - would cause a stir over here I suspect

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 2d

Good luck on Fetlar!

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Tom Bedford @tombedford.bsky.social · 3d

A longer blog post about a week on Fair Isle with @sheldonbirds.bsky.social: www.outofthebluesky.co/2025/10/11/a...
Many thanks to all at @fairislebirdobs.bsky.social, a fantastic place with incredible food! Honourable mentions for @lukemarriner1.bsky.social and @philwoollen.bsky.social
#ukbirding

A week on Fair Isle: seeking still air

I first visited Fair Isle in 1986 as a seventeen-year-old, benefitting from a Richard Richardson bursary to cover the accommodation costs at the bird observatory. As an inexperienced inland birder,…

www.outofthebluesky.co

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Belvide Birding𓅪 @belvidebirding.bsky.social · 4d

One of the most incredible WTF!! moments I have witnessed in 41 years birding Belvide. 8 White-rumped Sandpiper on the north shore between 4pm-5.30pm. Just short of a British Record of 11 on the outer Hebrides. Thought I'd lost the plot when I saw them. Still pinching myself. #UKbirding

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 4d

Outstanding - looking for opportunities to make this trip this winter...

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 5d

Honouring the life of Sir John Gurdon, who died earlier this week: awarded the Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine for seminal work carried out in Oxford Zoology (now @biology.ox.ac.uk) showing that mature cells could be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medic...

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 was awarded jointly to Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent"

www.nobelprize.org

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 5d

Bloody enormous!

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 5d

What are they?!!

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Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 5d

Three Bicentenary research fellowships on offer at @officialuom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social for exceptional ECRs with <3y postdoc experience

3yrs salary + £30k pa research expenses

Do you have a great idea & want to join @mermanchester.bsky.social?

www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/sup...

Bicentenary Early Career Research Fellowships | Biology, Medicine and Health | University of Manchester

Find out about and apply for a Bicentenary Early Career Research Fellowship.

www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 6d

Don’t we? How do you know?

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 6d

Fascinating, while at the same time somewhat nightmarish:

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight

Despite billions of passerines seasonally migrating during the night at high altitudes, only three bat species have been found to consistently tap into this rich prey resource. However, it remains unk...

www.science.org

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 6d

Topical! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight

Despite billions of passerines seasonally migrating during the night at high altitudes, only three bat species have been found to consistently tap into this rich prey resource. However, it remains unk...

www.science.org

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 6d

Hi Sonja - very interested to read, but the link to the paper just seems to come back to BlueSky - can you share a link?

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Common Tern Project @commonternproject.bsky.social · 6d

Out @animalecology.bsky.social today - a paper with David Ewing in which we explore the #HPAI outbreak in the terns. We find bird-to-bird transmission to be the main driver of infection and estimate the probability of mortality to drop from 0.26 to 0.14 from 2022 to 2023: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 7d

Of course the tables are turned sometimes - this classic paper on Greater Noctules feeding on migrating birds:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11493689/

Bat predation on nocturnally migrating birds - PubMed

Bat predation on birds is a very rare phenomenon in nature. Most documented reports of bird-eating bats refer to tropical bats that occasionally capture resting birds. Millions of small birds concentr...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 7d

Fabulous tale! A great face to watch in that video for the tremendous range of expressions conveyed by those eyebrows..

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 8d

Pushing the limits of record shots, but good to see this Black-necked Grebe that had appeared at Farmoor this morning still there at sunset today - one of those only just annual species I thought I'd missed locally this year. Interesting to see it sticking close to the gull roost - natal memories?

A winter plumaged Black-necked Grebe (centre, foreground) swimming on Farmoor Reservoir in front of mixed gull roost (Herring, Lesser Black-backed and Black-headed Gulls)

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Per Alström @peralstrom.bsky.social · 9d

I was honoured to be invited to give a talk on AviList, the new unified global checklist of birds, at the Delta Birding Festival 2+ weeks ago, and the organizers just sent me a link to a YouTube video of my talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO5x... #birds #ornithology #taxonomy

AviList: a unified global bird checklist - Per Alström

YouTube video by Delta Birding Festival

www.youtube.com

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