Updates about migration, life history, ringing, research & outreach from the Institute of Avian Research & bird ringing centre for North-West Germany.
Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland'
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The 2-year-olds have started to arrive en masse and, with 83, now make up 18% of the registered birds at the colony. At 470 of those, we are exactly 70 above the number we had this time last year. Food is looking good too, and the chicks are growing nicely. ❤️
Fresh as can be. Hatching has started at the Banter See common tern colony. ❤️
The Banter See breeding season in numbers so far: 226 males and 210 females (aged 2 - 25) have been registered, 319 clutches have been produced, 257 chicks have hatched, 93 blood samples have been collected and 48 birds have been caught for our geolocator-project.
Hatching has started at @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social's colony site too. ❤️
New paper: Does migration alter cellular ageing? Migratory blackbirds had longer telomeres (but similar mitochondrial density) than resident conspecifics at a North Sea stopover site, suggesting potential physiological adaptations linked to migration
➡️ vist.ly/559cq
#ornithology #birds
I title this arty photo "Dedication"! @ccrowther.bsky.social did great at Pint of Science last night: how long should you wait for your mate to return from migration before concluding "screw this, likely dead"? - Bummed you missed it? Come to @isbe2026.bsky.social or inspect a poster at #ExE2026.
Piro et al. Tracking of adult males and females across a migratory divide: migration strategies of a western baltic common tern (Sterna hirundo) population link.springer.com/article/10.1... #ornithology #seabirds
Bugging is underway, and we are missing @matteobeccardi.bsky.social who spent two seasons supplementing the team to collect data on sex- and age-specific mitochondrial functioning in the terns. His paper on this just came out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1242/jeb....
Migratory birds perform extraordinary journeys—but we still don’t fully understand how they do it. #TiiaKärkkäinen, @pablosalmon.bsky.social & @barbarahelm.bsky.social reveal why the field of migration physiology is still wide open for new discoveries
➡️ vist.ly/56fr7
#ornithology
Submit your poster presentation for the upcoming annual meeting now!
The annual meeting will take place from 16 to 20 September at the University of Mainz. The main topics are #LifeHistory, #BehaviouralEcology, #MovementEcology, and environmental endocrinology.
www.do-g.de/veranstalten...
Background European Common Terns’ migration routes along the eastern Atlantic flyway and wintering areas in western and southern Africa were identified in ringing studies. Recent tracking studies reve...
