Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Jul 17

Novel game idea: geoguessing but with eBird checklists 🌎 🦢

Reposted by Samuel Jones

Jacob Drucker @prosobonia.bsky.social · Jun 11

Our paper about the flow of nocturnal bird migration through Colombia is finally out today in #ProcB! Using weather radars operated by the #IDEAM, we found that low variability in wind underlies a pace of migration that is far more gradual than at temperate latitudes. #Ornithology 📡🪶🇨🇴

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Jun 12

Love it- nice one!

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

Stu Butchart @stubutchart.bsky.social · Jun 11

We've just launched AviList! - the new unified global taxonomic checklist for the world's birds, developed through the Working Group on Avian Classification, including BirdLife, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, IOC and others @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.avilist.org

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

Andrés Cuervo @amcuervo.bsky.social · May 22

My student Vanessa Perez is analyzing hundreds of photos of the Barred Fruiteater. If you have some, you can help her fill some geographic gaps. A cool story is unwrapping ⛰️🪶 Please share! #birds #ornithology #speciation #andes

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

Nicolas Alexandre @nicmalexandre.bsky.social · May 21

🚨New paper alert!🚨
We show that hummingbird beaks have changed in shape & size since around WWII, driven by the rise of commercialized feeders! 🧵
📄 Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb....
#ornithology #evolution #GlobalChangeBiology

Supplemental Feeding as a Driver of Population Expansion and Morphological Change in Anna's Hummingbirds

Bird beaks are highly adaptable, with the potential to undergo rapid morphological shifts in response to environmental change such as climatic variation or food availability. Anna's Hummingbirds (Cal...

dx.doi.org

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · May 20

Pleased to contribute some long(ish..) term data from Honduras as part of BioTIME 2.0: a terrific dataset ripe for all sorts of questions! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Also another wake up call as to the massive biological data gaps across equatorial Africa (and the tropics in general)..

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · May 18

The old one from swaro ELs is a perfect fit. I got rid of the new one and replaced with the old one immediately!

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

Cin-Ty Lee @cintylee.bsky.social · May 17

It's that dreaded time of the year when one has to sort thru Willow and Alder Flycatchers. Primary tip spacing can make one's life much easier as outlined in Andrew Birch's and my article in Western Birds. Photo below from @evornithology.bsky.social static1.squarespace.com/static/54b9b...

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · May 9

Seemingly another one of Africa’s avian enigmas resolved!

Martin Collinson @docmartin2mc.bsky.social · Apr 15

Just uploaded to @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social

'Genetic and morphological analysis shows the Nechisar Nightjar is a hybrid'

with Thom Shannon and Hein van Grouw

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

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Genetic and morphological analysis shows the Nechisar Nightjar is a hybrid

The Nechisar Nightjar Caprimulgus solala was described only from a single wing collected as roadkill from Nechisar National Park in Ethiopia in 1990. To resolve its taxonomic status a sample was taken...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

Paul Dufour @pauldufour80.bsky.social · May 5

Another birding paper! 🐦Where do the Nearctic landbirds that show up in Europe each autumn come from? We usually assume they come from NE populations, pushed off course by bad weather - but is that the whole story? #ornithology 1/3

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Apr 25

Liquid whistles of Swainson’s Warbler.. fast becoming one of my favourite birds of the south eastern bottomland forests of the US..

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Mar 27

Of which the epithet solala means only one wing!
forever flying in circles..

Recent searches on the Nechisar plain to find it have still drawn a blank 🤔

Dan Baldassarre @evornithology.bsky.social · Mar 27

TIL there's a whole-ass nightjar species described from one random wing found on the side of the road in Ethiopia

birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Mar 26

Probably not! Tigers in India (even though as I understand it has had problems in the past?) large national coordinated census - might be best looking for a large country and species populations therein?

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Mar 26

Humans 👀

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

Monte Neate-Clegg @mhcneateclegg.bsky.social · Feb 14

Our recent paper made the cover of Ornithological Applications! We used Bayesian hierarchical mark-recapture modelling to understand demographic rates across an elevational gradient in Honduras. @amornith.bsky.social @seijones.bsky.social. Check out the paper: doi.org/10.1093/orni...

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Reposted by Samuel Jones

gavin jones @ecologyofgavin.bsky.social · Feb 12

Whenever I hear someone say that ebird data sucks and is unreliable, it tells me that they are repeating something they were told 15 years ago, and that they haven’t read any of the truly groundbreaking methods developments that have made ebird one of the best macroecological datasets on earth

Desirée L. Narango @dlnarango.bsky.social · Feb 12

other fun facts I learned today is that ebird data is garbage and too low quality to be used for anything

and spatial products for good abiotic data are not available at resolutions <1km 🫠

News to me!

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Feb 8

A lot of different people have been saying this in different ways.. for a long time

Louise Chavarie @chavarie.bsky.social · Feb 7

If you did not read this paper, please do!!! Fieldwork needs to be recognized as a valuable and tangible aspects of science! Funding agency needs to start to value this more or....

Extinction of experience among ecologists sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Extinction of experience among ecologists

Fieldwork-based research and education in ecology are under multiple threats and are progressively declining. We call for greater attention to this on…

sciencedirect.com

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Jan 24

Anyone reading this know anything about this paper in Bill ABC?! Would love to hear more if so!

Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Jan 10

Yes exactly! Good thought - I don’t know..

Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Jan 6

🚨Elite.. comparable to Cocha Cashu 1982 big day record!

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · Jan 5

OK, mind blown... A single site, *on foot* big day record of 345 species on this eBird checklist!

ebird.org/checklist/S2...

eBird Checklist - 23 Jul 2015 - Los Amigos Biological Station (CICRA) - 345 species (+1 other taxa)

Submitted by Sean Williams.

ebird.org

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Dec 23

200% all killer no filler

Andrew Mountcastle @mounty.bsky.social · Dec 23

Here you go, so pitted!

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Dec 14

Taking into account age of the individual, and moult strategy. Broadly speaking yes. In many sp I personally see regularly, a body moult of 3-4 would be birds well underway in primary moult (or for an incomplete pre-formative moult inherently close to completing)

Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Dec 12

If you want the best-worst conceptual figure this is my all time fave from bioone.org/journals/ard... I dont understand it but I love it

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Samuel Jones @seijones.bsky.social · Dec 12

Likewise, if you’ve space!

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