Wild great tits signal ‘divorce’ long before the breeding season — even in the winter, months before the couples rebreed with different partners in the following spring

New study with @universityofleeds.bsky.social in @royalsocietypublishing.org 👇
bit.ly/4lRt7TN
@sheldonbirds.bsky.social

Really enjoying my new job teaching Biology in London, but the sunny weather has me missing the early Wytham mornings during the field season 🌳
An old video I made of the '23 field season working for @egioxford.bsky.social & @biology.ox.ac.uk takes me back: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-rm...

Yay congratulations Denise!!

Checklist Media is now live! ebird.org/news/new-che...

Write-up of my week in Scilly: www.joewoodmanwildlife.com/blog/scilly-...

#ScillyBirds #Birdwatching

My happy place: shorebird-watching on Tresco as the tide pushes them inland in the morning sun. This year made even better by a colour-ringed sanderling, originally ringed as a juv in Pontevedra, Spain Oct 2020, and seen again in Syddanmark, Denmark Jul 2022
#ScillyBirds #Birds #BirdRinging

Great to catch the shore lark before leaving Scilly - a really scarce bird on the islands with this being the first since 2009 and one of only 13 in total
#ScillyBirds

Great tramp around Bryher w/ Will @iwtscilly.bsky.social, inc catching up with the woodchat shrike found earlier. Also learnt lots more about Scilly's flora, including seeing the amazing dwarf pansy - found only in Scilly and essentially only within this approx 100m2 plot!
#ScillyBirds

V tough conditions for birding yday with high winds/rain, but in true Scilly fashion the weather flipped completely overnight. Kicked off w a self-found wryneck and a smattering of rouzels. Failed to catch up with the purple heron on St Marys, but it was a lovely day to walk around the island.

Very considerate of my sister to get married in July so our family holiday to Scilly has been brought forward to a much more birding-friendly April! Blustery/wet crossing on the Scillonian brought 100+ Manxies, as well as guillemots and razorbills. Looking forward to a week of birding!

Such a nice bird to catch up with locally, but not quite in the confines of my Brill village patch!

Feeling particularly springlike this morning, with the first chiffchaff of the year ringed in the garden. Accompanied by some other faves including 3 new goldcrest and a dunnock in breeding condition

Studies of domestic pigeons have taught us lots about cognition, navigation, and genetics. If you’d like to learn why their wild cousins are also worthy of scientific attention, I’ve written a Rock Dove @currentbiology.bsky.social ‘quick guide’: doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.065

We're hiring a fieldworker to help with some of our projects in Wytham Woods this spring. Wonderful place to work (and live), especially in the spring. Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

New paper by @joewoodman.bsky.social showing the enormous power of combining long-term datasets answering essential questions in ecology and evolution! Proud to be part of this network @spibirds.bsky.social

Wotton has been my short-term local patch since moving back to Brill in Nov. Highlights have included RC pochard, a merlin having a go at a ~30000 strong starling murmuration, Caspian gull in evening roost, at least 4 GWE, and this morning my first oystercatcher of the spring. Great site!

New paper out! Read Ben’s great post on how/why we used a combined 702 yrs of data from >130k great tits spanning 3200km to assess spatial synchrony in age structure⬇️
Thanks to all the amazing co-authors and @spibirds.bsky.social for promoting broad-scale analyses like this! doi.org/10.1111/ele....

Long LONG overdue departure from Twitter and migration to Bluesky. What better to first post than some highlights from my trip to Scilly in Oct ‘24
#ScillyBirds #BirdRinging