Soay Sheep Project
@soaysheep.bsky.social
Bleats about all things Soay Sheep: field, research, puns 🐑
Home of the long term study of the Soay Sheep of St Kilda, Scotland 🏝️
Also check out our instagram: www.instagram.com/soaysheep/
and website: https://soaysheep.bio.ed.ac.uk/
🔭🐏
Home of the long term study of the Soay Sheep of St Kilda, Scotland 🏝️
Also check out our instagram: www.instagram.com/soaysheep/
and website: https://soaysheep.bio.ed.ac.uk/
🔭🐏
Reposted by Soay Sheep Project
Delighted to receive this late season record of a 1cy Ring-necked Duck on #StKilda yesterday from @soaysheep.bsky.social researcher Xavier Bal. A 2nd island record after the first in 2000!
Thanks for this fab 📷 @barnardlucy.bsky.social 🙂
@birdguides.bsky.social
@hebridesbirds.bsky.social
Thanks for this fab 📷 @barnardlucy.bsky.social 🙂
@birdguides.bsky.social
@hebridesbirds.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Delighted to receive this late season record of a 1cy Ring-necked Duck on #StKilda yesterday from @soaysheep.bsky.social researcher Xavier Bal. A 2nd island record after the first in 2000!
Thanks for this fab 📷 @barnardlucy.bsky.social 🙂
@birdguides.bsky.social
@hebridesbirds.bsky.social
Thanks for this fab 📷 @barnardlucy.bsky.social 🙂
@birdguides.bsky.social
@hebridesbirds.bsky.social
Census 6 completed! The tups are really starting to size each other up now, either guarding males or hanging around in groups like this particularly large one
November 7, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Census 6 completed! The tups are really starting to size each other up now, either guarding males or hanging around in groups like this particularly large one
Safe to say the sheepies are hiding inside a lot of today 🔭🐑
October 31, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Safe to say the sheepies are hiding inside a lot of today 🔭🐑
Reposted by Soay Sheep Project
Back out counting sheep! 🔭🐑 @soaysheep.bsky.social
October 29, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Back out counting sheep! 🔭🐑 @soaysheep.bsky.social
And to round off the Sheepie presence at @eseb2025.bsky.social we had a full house for Lizy giving a talk on the missing fraction problem! Thanks for having us Barcelona!
August 22, 2025 at 9:31 PM
And to round off the Sheepie presence at @eseb2025.bsky.social we had a full house for Lizy giving a talk on the missing fraction problem! Thanks for having us Barcelona!
📜🐏Sheepies at @eseb2025.bsky.social! Some of our PhD students are presenting their work in tonight’s poster session. Check them out here: @barnardlucy.bsky.social on epigenetics #8, @lizziedrake.bsky.social and sex specific senescence #10, and @elliswiersma.bsky.social with breeding phenology #350
August 19, 2025 at 7:28 AM
📜🐏Sheepies at @eseb2025.bsky.social! Some of our PhD students are presenting their work in tonight’s poster session. Check them out here: @barnardlucy.bsky.social on epigenetics #8, @lizziedrake.bsky.social and sex specific senescence #10, and @elliswiersma.bsky.social with breeding phenology #350
🔭🐑 Our summer field team have been busy beavering away and have completed their 10 censuses of the village bay population (picured). Over ten days a team of three will go out and count all the sheep in this area, tagged and untagged, so we know who is where and who they are grouping with.
August 6, 2025 at 8:30 AM
🔭🐑 Our summer field team have been busy beavering away and have completed their 10 censuses of the village bay population (picured). Over ten days a team of three will go out and count all the sheep in this area, tagged and untagged, so we know who is where and who they are grouping with.
Reposted by Soay Sheep Project
T-helper cell responses in wild Soay sheep are repeatable, positively correlated, and linked to resistance against helminths and coccidia, challenging assumptions about Th1/Th2 trade-offs in natural settings.
📖 Read more: https://bit.ly/3GCm0PN
#VeterinaryImmunology
📖 Read more: https://bit.ly/3GCm0PN
#VeterinaryImmunology
July 10, 2025 at 4:45 PM
T-helper cell responses in wild Soay sheep are repeatable, positively correlated, and linked to resistance against helminths and coccidia, challenging assumptions about Th1/Th2 trade-offs in natural settings.
📖 Read more: https://bit.ly/3GCm0PN
#VeterinaryImmunology
📖 Read more: https://bit.ly/3GCm0PN
#VeterinaryImmunology
💻🐑 Update! Back on the mainland our team at @sheffielduni.bsky.social have been beavering away and have finished extracting DNA and aligning over 1000 whole sheep genomes as part of an exciting new project. Keep an eye out for more as the work progresses.
July 9, 2025 at 8:57 AM
💻🐑 Update! Back on the mainland our team at @sheffielduni.bsky.social have been beavering away and have finished extracting DNA and aligning over 1000 whole sheep genomes as part of an exciting new project. Keep an eye out for more as the work progresses.
🔭🐑 Check it out! With the lambing team back on the mainland have a look at the stats for the arrival of the Echo Orange cohort of 2025!
June 24, 2025 at 8:41 AM
🔭🐑 Check it out! With the lambing team back on the mainland have a look at the stats for the arrival of the Echo Orange cohort of 2025!
🖨️🐑 Sneak Peak! A new sheepie pre-print is up on BioRXiv on the Environment dependent benefits of sociality in Soay Sheep. Check it out here doi.org/10.1101/2025... (1/2)
Environment dependent benefits of sociality in Soay sheep
An individual’s social connections have strong effects on fitness. Despite this, there is pronounced among-individual variation in social behaviour. This variation may be maintained if different types...
doi.org
June 13, 2025 at 3:03 PM
🖨️🐑 Sneak Peak! A new sheepie pre-print is up on BioRXiv on the Environment dependent benefits of sociality in Soay Sheep. Check it out here doi.org/10.1101/2025... (1/2)
Reposted by Soay Sheep Project
May 28, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Soay Sheep Project
For the feral #sheep on the remote St Kilda islands of #Scotland, long-term success hinges on the first year of life, especially for males. Here are the interesting reasons why: www.pnas.org/post/journal...
#ecology #EvolutionaryEcology #SexualDimorphism #SexualSelection
#ecology #EvolutionaryEcology #SexualDimorphism #SexualSelection
April 29, 2025 at 7:37 PM
For the feral #sheep on the remote St Kilda islands of #Scotland, long-term success hinges on the first year of life, especially for males. Here are the interesting reasons why: www.pnas.org/post/journal...
#ecology #EvolutionaryEcology #SexualDimorphism #SexualSelection
#ecology #EvolutionaryEcology #SexualDimorphism #SexualSelection
🔭🐑 The first lambs have arrived, and spot on time from consort sightings in November! Soon village bay will be full of skipping lambs and frantic field workers....🏃♀️➡️
April 15, 2025 at 1:32 PM
🔭🐑 The first lambs have arrived, and spot on time from consort sightings in November! Soon village bay will be full of skipping lambs and frantic field workers....🏃♀️➡️
📰🐑New Paper! PhD researcher @lizziedrake.bsky.social and collaborators looked at how harsh environments in a Soay's first year can have lasting impacts on reproduction and lifespan, and how they differ for males and females.
Read it here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Read it here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
April 15, 2025 at 1:26 PM
📰🐑New Paper! PhD researcher @lizziedrake.bsky.social and collaborators looked at how harsh environments in a Soay's first year can have lasting impacts on reproduction and lifespan, and how they differ for males and females.
Read it here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Read it here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
🔭🐑 Saturday saw a big milestone for our field team who completed their 10th and final census of the trip and were rewarded with some glorious weather! Bring on the Lambs...
April 7, 2025 at 11:36 AM
🔭🐑 Saturday saw a big milestone for our field team who completed their 10th and final census of the trip and were rewarded with some glorious weather! Bring on the Lambs...
🔭🐑 Our lambing field season is underway! Last week our lambing team arrived and started out on their first big job of the trip, study area censusing. They will try and spot as many sheep as they can across 10 censuses over the next couple of weeks
March 24, 2025 at 9:43 AM
🔭🐑 Our lambing field season is underway! Last week our lambing team arrived and started out on their first big job of the trip, study area censusing. They will try and spot as many sheep as they can across 10 censuses over the next couple of weeks
📰🐑 We're on the cover! If you haven't already seen it, check out a piece about how our long term field research helps studying ageing in the wild.
🗞️Our March issue is live!📷This month we're featuring work on sarcopenia, senescence, cognitive resilience, the effects of body temperature on healthspan and much more… Read it all here: nature.com/nataging/vol...
March 20, 2025 at 11:46 AM
📰🐑 We're on the cover! If you haven't already seen it, check out a piece about how our long term field research helps studying ageing in the wild.
The combination of different horn shapes, colour morphs and sometimes white patches make every sheep unique to the keen eye. But when we are out censusing it’s much easier to tell them apart by their unique colour tag and number which can be spotted through the teloscope 🔭🐑
March 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM
The combination of different horn shapes, colour morphs and sometimes white patches make every sheep unique to the keen eye. But when we are out censusing it’s much easier to tell them apart by their unique colour tag and number which can be spotted through the teloscope 🔭🐑
Sheepie News! A perspective piece in @natureaging.bsky.social highlights the importance of long term research and how St Kilda Soay sheep project provides a powerful model for understanding why ageing process varies under complex environmental conditions.
Check it out: doi.org/10.1038/s435...
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Check it out: doi.org/10.1038/s435...
📰🐑
February 28, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Sheepie News! A perspective piece in @natureaging.bsky.social highlights the importance of long term research and how St Kilda Soay sheep project provides a powerful model for understanding why ageing process varies under complex environmental conditions.
Check it out: doi.org/10.1038/s435...
📰🐑
Check it out: doi.org/10.1038/s435...
📰🐑
Sheepie News! A new paper led by researchers at @moredunfoundation.bsky.social shows that immune responses are consistent over time and predict worm infection levels in Soay Sheep. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1093/disc...
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T-helper cell phenotypes are repeatable, positively correlated, and associated with helminth infection in wild Soay sheep
AbstractBackground. T-helper (Th) cells co-ordinate immune responses to ensure that infections with diverse parasites are controlled effectively. Helminth
doi.org
February 28, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Sheepie News! A new paper led by researchers at @moredunfoundation.bsky.social shows that immune responses are consistent over time and predict worm infection levels in Soay Sheep. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1093/disc...
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With the lambing season fast approaching, it's time to meet the sheep! Soay sheep come in four colour morphs or "flavours" indicating their body and belly colours: dark-wild, dark-self, light-wild, and light-self. The most common is the dark wild morph with a brown body and white belly.
February 27, 2025 at 10:43 AM
With the lambing season fast approaching, it's time to meet the sheep! Soay sheep come in four colour morphs or "flavours" indicating their body and belly colours: dark-wild, dark-self, light-wild, and light-self. The most common is the dark wild morph with a brown body and white belly.
We've arrived! The Soay Sheep project now has Bluesky 🦋 Follow along for "bleats" about all things sheep related, from field work to research output and everything in between
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January 29, 2025 at 9:43 AM
We've arrived! The Soay Sheep project now has Bluesky 🦋 Follow along for "bleats" about all things sheep related, from field work to research output and everything in between
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Sheepies on the move! Tomorrow is our annual sheep meeting in Edinburgh bringing together researchers from across the country for all things Soay Sheep 💻🐑
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#SoaySheepProject #research #ecology
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#SoaySheepProject #research #ecology
March 24, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Sheepies on the move! Tomorrow is our annual sheep meeting in Edinburgh bringing together researchers from across the country for all things Soay Sheep 💻🐑
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#SoaySheepProject #research #ecology
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#SoaySheepProject #research #ecology
Rut Team 2024! Xavier, Rebecca, and Lucy have (just about) finished a four week trip to do our autumn data collection: censusing, behaviour, and vegetation sampling, as well as setting up some extra wind loggers for the winter 🔭🐏
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#fieldwork #stkilda #soaysheep #ecology
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#fieldwork #stkilda #soaysheep #ecology
March 24, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Rut Team 2024! Xavier, Rebecca, and Lucy have (just about) finished a four week trip to do our autumn data collection: censusing, behaviour, and vegetation sampling, as well as setting up some extra wind loggers for the winter 🔭🐏
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#fieldwork #stkilda #soaysheep #ecology
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#fieldwork #stkilda #soaysheep #ecology