Ben Sheldon
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sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon
@sheldonbirds.bsky.social
3.7K followers 480 following 4.3K posts

Ornithologist and Evolutionary Ecologist at the University of Oxford - natural history, science, cycling

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Ben C. Sheldon is the Luc Hoffmann Chair in Field Ornithology and Director of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology of the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology. He was Head of the Department of Zoology between 2016 and 2021. .. more

Biology 32%
Environmental science 30%
Posts Replies Media Videos

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 14h
Was in NW Germany last week - absolutely Arctic conditions: this was the Waddensee near Wilhelmshaven - actually surprised we haven't had more fugitives from the continent

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 15h
A bit of data from @bvdbirds.bsky.social paper tracking UK wintering birds with geolocators. The 'end date' of their autumn migration to the UK spans the month of Oct

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 20h
I think 19 Oct is a classic autumn migration date for a UK wintering B'cap?

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d
"Smew by Monet"

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 3d
Very nice to see this in the flesh finally - many thanks to Keith Kirby for coordinating this project.
Photo shows hand holding hardback book About Wytham Woods

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 3d
Another wet weekend (week, fortnight, month....) forecast - very handy long account of the challenges around flooding here in Oxfordshire from @oxfordclarion.bsky.social

oxfordclarion.uk/flooding-in-...

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 4d
A richly rewarding two days reviewing @ifv-whv.bsky.social: thriving under the brilliant leadership of Sandra Bouwhuis & Miriam Liedvogel. An exciting programme of research into avian migration & life histories with many future stars. Outstanding @commonternproject.bsky.social museum by frozen sea!
Common Tern Museum at the Bantersee Common Tern Museum at the Bantersee View of the ice-bound Waddensee Profs Miriam Liedvogel & Prof Sandra Bouwhuis - brilliant leaders of the Institute of Avian Research (with some old German ornithological leaders in the background)

Reposted by Stephen D. Murphy

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 7d
Epic correction

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, John R. Hutchinson

laminda.bsky.social
Mindy Weisberger @laminda.bsky.social · 7d
Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers "had a relationship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that included 'major funding' and at least one 'wonderful lunch' that featured a 'bevy of beauties'" (is a sentence that makes me feel gross just for typing it)
Ex-Rutgers prof in latest batch of Epstein files, accepted at least $40K from sex offender
A former Rutgers professor had a relationship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that included “major funding," documents show.
www.nj.com

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Simon Roux, Craig R. Primmer , and 3 more

jsmartin.bsky.social
Jordan S. Martin @jsmartin.bsky.social · 7d
I am looking for a PhD student to join my new Socio-Eco-Evo group, hosted in Katie Peichel's Evolutionary Ecology Division @ University of Bern. We're offering a fully funded 4-year position, studying social plasticity and behavioral adaptation among stickleback in Greenland. Please share around!

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 8d
Whose name is redacted?!

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 9d
He’s blocked me for some reason 🤷

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 9d
My favourite Merlin misclassification was the Oxford women's lacrosse team practice identified as a Pink-footed Geese. More seriously - calibration always going to be necessary, but they are great learning tools.

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 9d
Actually, my mistake, there is a link, but it is virtually invisible on a quick scan of the text.

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 9d
No link to original source... bird in photo not labelled... Pretty useless writing

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 10d
A reminder about @jon-slate.bsky.social seminar in 58 minutes this afternoon... Will be live-streamed - see poster ⬇️ for details of how to get link.
egioxford.bsky.social Edward Grey Institute @egioxford.bsky.social · 14d
This week's EGI seminar will be given by Prof Jon Slate @jon-slate.bsky.social of @sheffielduni.bsky.social at 3.30 on Fri 30 Jan in LT1 in LaMB @biology.ox.ac.uk. OK, it's not quite birds, but our colleagues' work on @soaysheep.bsky.social has much in common with what we do. All welcome: details ⬇️

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 11d
I think I'm somehow failing to understand the significance of this finding. Remove extrinsic mortality, and the heritability of lifespan increases. But isn't that what we expect for any trait and system where we systematically remove sources of V(E) and V(R)?

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50% when confounding factors are addressed
How heritable is human life span? If genetic heritability is high, longevity genes can reveal aging mechanisms and inform medicine and public health. However, current estimates of heritability are low...
www.science.org

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Orlando Schwery

eliotmiller.bsky.social
Eliot Miller @eliotmiller.bsky.social · 11d
Taxonomy and phylogeny are two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they are always in agreement. I wrote a blog post on why the new Phylogeny Explorer in @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social is such a big deal in that regard, and what's in store next for us.

eliotmiller.weebly.com/blog/birds-o...
Birds of World's new Phylogeny Explorer
It’s been an exciting week. Five years in the making, we’re very excited to release this new, updated, dynamic phylogeny of the world’s birds. By harnessing Open Tree of Life ’s existing...
eliotmiller.weebly.com

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 11d
Yes, and some of them migrate at least twice as far, heading north to the UK, as their neighbours that migrate south to more traditional sites!

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 11d
It's an interesting question, made more complicated by the fact that I think lots of our wintering birds start something that's not full song. By the way, not all UK wintering Blackcaps come from E Europe - some come from France & Spain!

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d
Academic power games in the early 18th century. Plus ca change...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrono...

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d
And Le Guin’s writing is stratospherically better than Rowling’s

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d
Wow!

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d
And a couple of White-winged Scoter!

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d
Very cool... how many species should we be able to find there?

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 13d
This thread showing increasing AI breakdown from reality with map generation as scale gets larger is simultaneously amusing and horrifying. Quite why my University rushed into offering ChatGPT to all staff and students is a bit of a mystery to me.
tautology.uk Tautology @tautology.uk · 13d
I'm trying a new "see how well AI image gen is" test. This time I'm going to ask it to draw a map of the world, and then zoom in to Europe, the UK, Yorkshire and York to see when things start to get hazy.

All of these are with the free models using the smart/thinking variants. 1/n

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 13d
..winter after hard weather with a small group of BG. They were rubbished, in my view possibly unfairly!

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 13d
...it is pretty obvious from the map that there is an orientation and then withdrawal of records along the NE axis along which the Barnacles migrate (apart from some plastic UK birds..). Hence, I think dutch BG is a good potential carrier species for RBG. We had two RBG that appeared in Oxon one 2/n

sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 13d
When I lived in Sweden in the 90s we would quite regularly see a few Red-breasted Geese (up to 4) with the large staging flocks of Barnacles in the Baltic. These were Dutch wintering BG heading for Arctic Russia, pretty close to RBG breeding area. Maps show Mar-June records from eBird, I think 1/n
Ebird records of Red-breasted Goose in NW Europe in March Ebird records of Red-breasted Goose in NW Europe in April Ebird records of Red-breasted Goose in NW Europe in May Ebird records of Red-breasted Goose in NW Europe in June

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Katrina Navickas

tautology.uk
Tautology @tautology.uk · 13d
I'm trying a new "see how well AI image gen is" test. This time I'm going to ask it to draw a map of the world, and then zoom in to Europe, the UK, Yorkshire and York to see when things start to get hazy.

All of these are with the free models using the smart/thinking variants. 1/n