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Stare them down 😂

Sexier in the city? Urban male great bowerbirds decorate bowers with human-made objects, creating brighter and more varied displays than rural males. Males strongly prefer human-made objects over natural ones, possibly boosting their appeal to females! shorturl.at/lcNY2 @royalsocietypublishing.org

Congratulations to Caitlin - the first paper from her PhD! 🥳

What an excellent topic for a study - who makes jokes during talks? 'Jokes eliciting whole-room laughter were rare (9%), while the majority fell flat or landed mildly, earning mostly quiet chuckles (67%)' Ouch!

Can we stop gulls from pinching food by sticking eyes 👀 on takeaway boxes? New paper in @ecol-evol.bsky.social suggests it is an effective solution for deterring some gulls from food sources, but not all! tinyurl.com/gulleyes Read a summary in @uk.theconversation.com tinyurl.com/gulleyes2

Nice article by the wonderful Marlene Zuk in National Geographic, featuring my and @neeltjeboogert.bsky.social research on Cornish herring gulls, and how kids got us into gulls 😊 @neeltjeboogert.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Why do gulls steal our food? Scientists experimented with French fries to find out.Gulls are often seen as intruders in our daily lives. But researchers are discovering what really motivates them—and strategies to keep them away from your lunch.www.nationalgeographic.com

Another stick in the wall: we removed part of male great bowerbird bower walls to test effect on courtship displays. Males didn’t just focus on rebuilding the wall, they stepped up effort across all aspects of their display, showing they flexibly invest in multiple signals tinyurl.com/4ujmkw95

Lectureships available with priorities in evolutionary biology, behavioural and sensory ecology, ecology and plants!

New bowerbird paper out, we asked whether male great bowerbirds care about the light environment around the bower where they display to females. Short answer: not really. What they do care about is having a display arena with strong visual contrast on the ground. 🐦 tinyurl.com/2v7rycdz

Thank you so much to everyone who came, it was lovely to catch up with old friends, meet new ones and hear about a lot of amazing sensory science!

And we're off! Innes Cuthill giving the public lecture on concealment in the animal kingdom #asabwinter2025

Turns out gulls don't like being shouted at (or stared at!) New paper led by excellent masters students @uniexecec.bsky.social with @neeltjeboogert.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Also managed to track down some immature male great bowerbirds today, they were displaying at trees to get some practice in (paper on this shorturl.at/jqOQt). Found these two sites due to the birds making a right racket!

One of the risks of bowerbirds sharing space with a university - sometimes scientific equipment (and samples) get pinched! Soy sauce containers also seem to be popular

Back in the land of bowers this week! Investigating how male courtship signals are affected by urbanisation #greatbowerbirds @uniexecec.bsky.social

Deadline for submitting an abstract to give a talk or poster is this Friday!

‪Come join us at the @asab.org Winter Conference 2025: how sensory info affects behaviour. 15th & 16th Dec, abstracts due end Aug. More info and registration asabwinter.github.io/2025 Co-hosted with @jtroscianko.bsky.social and Innes Cuthill

In the current challenging climate of finding reviewers, how long is too long to wait for a manuscript to be reviewed? My PhD student has had her first manuscript in review for six months now, journal has only managed to obtain one review so far 🤷‍♀️

Black margins are important for size discrimination - female green swordtails prefer larger males but preference is lost when black margins on tail are absent. Seems they can't judge which male is bigger without black margin! shorturl.at/6GKA2 @uniexecec.bsky.social @royalsocietypublishing.org

Sign up for ASAB spring meeting, the best conference for early career researchers in my humble opinion!