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The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a long, dark winter. These wonderful waders are responding badly to recent changes to Iceland’s landscape, such as the ever-expanding areas of non-native forestry and power infrastructure. Conservation of the species may be supported by reserving areas for … Continue reading The call of the Whimbrel
5 months ago

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More from wadertales

Making full use of tracking data

This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are being revealed through shorebird tracking work and to encourage scientists to make their data available via the Global Wader platform. If small numbers of waders are going to be required to carry tracking devices, then it can … Continue reading Making full use of tracking data

2 months ago 24 votes
Is inbreeding a problem for England’s Black-tailed Godwits?

The current English breeding population of limosa Black-tailed Godwits is relatively new, arising from a recolonisation in the 1950s that is presumed to have involved Dutch-hatched individuals. Given that the number of breeding birds is small and that there has been a head-starting project to boost the number of locally-raised youngsters for the last few … Continue reading Is inbreeding a problem for England’s Black-tailed Godwits?

2 months ago 18 votes
Iceland’s waders in decline

It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in West Europe and West Africa. There is a lot of guesswork associated with this number and little national monitoring information to assess whether species are doing well or badly. In this context, a 2025 paper in … Continue reading Iceland’s waders in decline

5 months ago 45 votes
How are migration sites connected?

Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from multiple sources of movement data to inform conservation of a migratory bird. The analysed data relate to … Continue reading How are migration sites connected?

6 months ago 124 votes

More in science

A Third of Slum Dwellers at Risk of 'Disastrous' Floods

Close to 900 million people across the Global South live in densely packed urban slums, which often sit in floodplains. A new study finds that one in three slum dwellers is at risk of "disastrous" flooding, a risk that is set to grow as warming spurs more intense rainfall around the world. Read more on E360 →

2 days ago 3 votes
Quantum Scientists Have Built a New Math of Cryptography

In theory, quantum physics can bypass the hard mathematical problems at the root of modern encryption. A new proof shows how. The post Quantum Scientists Have Built a New Math of Cryptography first appeared on Quanta Magazine

2 days ago 4 votes
On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past

For centuries, the Native people of North America used controlled burns to manage the continent's forests. In an e360 interview, ecologist Loris Daniels talks about the long history of Indigenous burning and why the practice must be restored to protect against catastrophic fires. Read more on E360 →

3 days ago 5 votes
Research experience for teachers - why NSF education funds matter

The beginning of a RET poster session Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs are an example of the kind of programs that the National Science Foundation funds which are focused on K12 (and broader) education. This summer I hosted a high school physics teacher in my lab for 6 weeks, where he worked on a brief project, with one of my doctoral students helping out in a mentoring role.  Just yesterday was the big poster session for all of the participants in the program, and it was very enjoyable to talk with a whole cadre of high school science teachers from across the greater Houston area about their projects and their experiences.   Readers may be more familiar with the sibling Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs, which give undergraduate students the chance to work for 10 weeks or so in a lab that is very likely not at their home institution.  REUs are a great way for students interested in research to get broad exposure to new topics, meet people and acquire new skills, and for some, figure out whether they like research (and maybe which topics are exciting to them).  The educational goal of REUs is clear:  providing direct research experience to interested undergrads, ideally while advancing a research project and for some small fraction of students resulting in an eventual publication.   RET programs are different:  They are intended as professional development.  The teachers are exposed to new topics, hopefully a fun research environment, and they are encouraged to think carefully about how they can take the concepts they learn and translate those for the classroom.  I am very much not an expert in education research, but there is evidence (see here, for example) that teachers who participate in these programs get a great deal of satisfaction and have lower attrition from teaching professions.  (Note that it's hard to do statistics well on questions like that, since the population of teachers that seek out opportunities like this may be a special subset of the total population of teachers.)  An idea that makes sense to me:  Enhancing the motivation and job satisfaction of a teacher can have a larger cumulative impact on educating students than an individual research project for a single student. It would be a great shame if RET and REU programs are victims of large-scale cuts at NSF.  The NSF is the only science agency with education as part of its mission (at least historically).  All the more reason to try to persuade appropriators to not follow the draconian presidential budget request for the agency.

4 days ago 8 votes
Tram trains

How to build cheap transit in smaller towns

4 days ago 9 votes