William Hemstrom
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birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
William Hemstrom
@birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
92 followers 24 following 28 posts
Population/conservation Geneticist at Colorado State University. Avid birder and extreme nerd. More of my photos hosted at the Macaulay Library/eBird (https://search.macaulaylibrary.org/catalog?searchField=user&userId=USER416741).
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birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Jocotoco Antpitta from Tapichalaca reserve, Ecuador. "Discovered" (by western scientists) in 1997, this critically endangered species lives in three disconnected patches in southern Ecuador and Peru. One of my favorite birds I've ever seen. Fundación Jocotoco is their key protector.

#birds
A critically endangered Jocotoco Antpitta staring into your soul. Judging.
November 3, 2025 at 9:13 PM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Short-tailed Shearwater from Rausu, Hokkaido, Japan. Dad and I went out on a whale watching trip with our guide. Didn't see any whales, but did see somewhere around 10-50k Short-tailed Shearwaters. Incredible numbers, more seabirds than I've ever seen.

#birds
#birdsphotography
#birdsofjapan
A Short-tailed Shearwater from Rausu, Hokkaido, Japan.
October 18, 2025 at 4:56 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Blakiston's Fish-Owl from Hokkaido, Japan. This giant species is endangered and restricted to a few locations.

Washi no Yado has shepherded generations of owls over the last few decades; they are one heck of a draw for birders. Worth a visit!
#birds
#birdsofjapan
#birdphotography
A Blakiston's Fish-Owl from Washi no Yado, Rausu, Hokkaido, Japan chewing on a fish.
October 16, 2025 at 4:04 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Black-tailed Gull from Miyakejima, Japan. A very abundant species in the area, but still a really nice bird when seen well! Gulls get too little love.

#birdsofjapan
#birdsofbluesky
#birds
#birdphotography
A soaring Black-tailed Gull
August 22, 2025 at 1:07 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
Bathing White-browed Fulvettas from Kathmandu, Nepal. Super cute. Super fluffy. I have so many photos from this bathing spot that are just lovely, one of my favorite places I've ever birded.

#birds
#birdsofnepal
#birdphotography
#birdsofbluesky
Bathing White-browed Fulvettas from Kathmandu, Nepal.
July 12, 2025 at 6:46 AM
Reposted by William Hemstrom
andylee.bsky.social
New paper with @birdpicsandscience.bsky.social out TODAY!!

We found that choosing "highly informative loci" (aka high fst loci) may bias results in common population genetic analyses

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

Explainer thread to come! #PopGen #PopulationGenomics #Evolution
‘Highly‐Informative’ Genetic Markers Can Bias Conclusions: Examples and General Solutions
High-grading bias is the overestimation power in a subset of loci caused by model overfitting. Using both empirical and simulated datasets, we show that high-grading bias can cause severe overestimat...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 11, 2025 at 4:58 PM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
An Izu Robin from Miyakejima, Japan. I've kinda fallen in love with island endemics--made a trip to Japan almost entirely for the purposes of seeing these and the other endemics on Miyake.

Miyake was awesome: rainy, chill little island with nice people and great birds.

#birds
#birdsofjapan
An Izu Robin from Miyakejima, Japan. Lovely, cute little endemic species.
July 5, 2025 at 11:27 PM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
The only endemic bird of Nepal, a Spiny Babbler. This bird was a serious adventure to get--ended up pulling myself up the side of a ~70-80% grade via all of the vegetation to get to the spot where these were active.

#birds
#birdsofnepal
#birdsofbluesky
#birdphotography
A Spiny Babbler chilling in a ticket up the side of a sheer hill that nearly killed me in Kathmandu, Nepal.
July 5, 2025 at 1:27 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
White-capped Redstart from the Helambru area of Nepal. This one is just about to take off from a rock in a fast, clear, high elevation stream where it was foraging.

Light was excellent so I was able to shoot with a fast shutter speed and get this one in action!

#birdphotography
#birdsofnepal
A White-capped Redstart just about to take off from a rock in a clear stream.
June 7, 2025 at 5:32 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
White-crested Laughingthrush. Fabulous.

From Kathmandu, Nepal.

#birdsofnepal
#birdphotography
#birdsofbluesky
#goodhairday
A White-crested Laughingthrush giving a staredown. A White-crested Laughingthrush perched on a branch from Kathmandu, Nepal. #goodhairday
May 29, 2025 at 4:44 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Blue Whistling-thrush from Nepal. I adore Whistling-thrushes; both of the species I've seen so far (Blue and Taiwan) have huge personalities and usually aren't shy at all.

#birdsofnepal
#birdphotography
#birdsofbluesky
A Blue Whisling-thrush from Nepal sitting on a rock with a "you lookin' at me?" face.
May 12, 2025 at 9:03 PM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Jungle Owlet from Chitwan NP, Nepal.
Tiny bird, big poof.

#birdsofbluesky
#birdphotography
#birdsofnepal
A Jungle Owlet perching from Chitwan NP, Nepal. Has a big, poofy head.
May 10, 2025 at 11:23 PM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
New paper out!

Monarch butterflies in Australia started migrating again after they spread across the Pacific. We found that ancestral genetic variation was maintained to help enable this.

#genomics
#PopGen
#PopulationGenetics
#PopulationGenomics
#monarchbutterfly

doi.org/10.1186/s128...
Novel genetic association with migratory diapause in Australian monarch butterflies - BMC Ecology and Evolution
Background Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are a charismatic and culturally important North American butterfly species famous for their unique, dramatic migratory life history. While non-migrat...
doi.org
May 7, 2025 at 8:00 PM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Brown Boobook from Sauraha, Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Tracked this one around through dense vegetation for a solid 45 minutes before finally getting a nice look at it.

#birdsofbluesky
#birdsofnepal
#owl
#birdphotography
A Brown Boobook owl from Chitwan NP, Nepal, staring at you with big ol' eyes.
April 17, 2025 at 5:32 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Japanese Accentor from Lake Miyagase, Kanagawa, Japan. One of several Accentors I saw on my trip to Nepal and Tokyo last January. Near-endemic to Japan and a really nice bird to find!

#birdsofbluesky
#birdsofjapan
#birding
A Japanese Accentor on a mossy canyon wall.
April 6, 2025 at 5:50 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Long-billed Thrush. Very appropriately named. Usually very cryptic.

We spent an hour and a half chasing them up heavily forested streams to no avail. The next morning we walked out of our lodge and immediately saw one just chilling on a stone fence.

#birdsofnepal
#birdsofbluesky
#birding
A long-billed thrush sitting on a stone fence, out in the open, mocking us after we spent ages trying to photograph one in heavy riparian forest the day before. From Langtang NP, but not Langtang Valley.
March 31, 2025 at 7:21 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
Had high variance in coverage at the VCF stage AFTER downsampling bams. I'd marked but not removed dups. Found out I had large variance in duplication rates (and high rates period) across samples. Good reason to remove them!

#genomics
#PopGen
#PopulationGenetics
#PopulationGenomics
High variation in final coverage at the VCF stage across samples. Points are samples, boxplots are distributions within sampling areas. Big range (2-6) despite downsampling bams to consistant coverage pre-genotyping. Distribution of duplication rates in bamfiles--downsampling didn't fix coverage differences due to high overall duplicaiton rates which varied across samples! Points are samples, boxplots are distributions for sampling locations.
March 18, 2025 at 5:47 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Striated Laughingthrush from Tarkeghyang, Bagmati, Nepal. It's hard not to just continuous photos of laughingthrushes--they are all too dang pretty. Even a "bland" one like this species.

#birdsofnepal
#birdsofbluesky
#birding
#birdphotography
A Striated Laughingthrush hanging sideways off of a branch in Tarkeghyang, Nepal
March 18, 2025 at 5:35 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Rufous Sibia from Kathmandu, Nepal at the bathing pond on Phulchowki hill.

#birdsofnepal
#birdsofbluesky
#birding
A Rufous Sibia bathing in Kathmandu, Nepal
March 16, 2025 at 3:36 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Brown Wood-Owl from Kathmandu, Nepal. We had a really solid trip owl-wise. Found this one as we were driving back and saw a promising patch of woods to check right as it started to get dark.

#birdsofnepal
#birdsofbluesky
#birding
A Brown Wood-Owl from Kathmandu
March 6, 2025 at 3:28 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
This female Hodgeson's Redstart doesn't seem to care about her spiky perch.

I love that I took this photo in the middle of downtown Kathmandu, but it looks like a grassland; makes me appreciate natural areas, even tiny ones, wherever you can find them.

#birdsofnepal
#birdsofbluesky
#birding
A Hodgson's Redstart perched on a spiky twig in Kathmandu, Nepal.
March 5, 2025 at 8:22 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Crimson Sunbird from Kathmandu, Nepal. Pretty bird! They have a large range in southeast Asia from Nepal to Borneo. We saw this one engaging in a bit of casual thievery, stealing nectar from some flowers by piercing the base.

#birdsofnepal
#birding
#birdofbluesky
A Crimson Sunbird from Kathmandu, Nepal.
March 4, 2025 at 2:59 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Chinese Hwamei from Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. This in an introduced species in Japan (and in Taiwan and a few other places), but this was still a life bird for me. They are a laughingthrush, which are one of my favorite taxa of birds.

#birdsofbluesky
#birdsofjapan
#birding
A Chinese Hwamei from Yokohama, Japan holding an acorn in its bill.
March 3, 2025 at 3:25 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
A Scaly Thrush from Kathmandu, Nepal. I missed these in Taiwan a year ago, so I was very glad to see one last month, particularly with such a great view! In Taiwan they're found alongside the extremely similar White's Thrush, which makes them a bit of a trial.

#birdsofbluesky
#birdsofnepal
A Scaly Thrush on some leaf-litter in Kathmandu, Nepal.
February 14, 2025 at 3:45 AM
birdpicsandscience.bsky.social
Black-faced Warblers from the same water hole in Phulchowki Hill, Kathmandu, Nepal. These birds move in big packs; when you see one, you see many!
#birdphotography
#birding
#birdsofbluesky
#birdsofnepal
A pair of bathing Black-faced Wablers. A Black-faced Warbler on a stick above a pool of water.
February 1, 2025 at 6:26 AM