Sarah Dobney

22 boxes of tubes, each holding extracted DNA of an individual Savannah Sparrow from our field site at Kent Island, New Brunswick.

A tube holding extracted DNA of one of the male Savannah Sparrows breeding on Kent Island in 2021. How many nestlings did he sire?!

Me loading DNA into a gel to test the quality of our DNA for ddRAD analysis.

I just returned from Cornell's Lab of O where I processed 1170 Savannah Sparrows for paternity analysis! I had so much fun learning new techniques and meeting the outstanding people at the Lab of O. Now I can't wait to see who the fathers are! @dmennill.bsky.social @ryannorrissci.bsky.social

Vocal and display differences in an island form of a lekking species with an acrobatic dance routine Island environments drive distinctive morphological and life history traits known as the ‘island syndrome’. Previous studies pointed to lower sexual s…

Our paper looking at vocal & display differences of Escudo manakins is online.

Vocalizations show that island manakins are derived from a hybrid population of golden- x white-collared manakins.

Interestingly, island living doesn't indicate relaxed sexual selection.

Fun project & amazing team 🏝️

We're testing out our latest prototypes of Motus Audio recorders in a campus recording studio. Led by visiting research student Jeff Dutter, with support from Natalie, Nelsy, and Madison. What effects do different plastic wraps have on our #nocmig recordings? Stay tuned to find out.

Sarah's visiting the Lab of Ornithology this month, conducting genetic analyses of parentage of Savannah Sparrows. Thanks to everyone at the Lab of O for their hospitality and mentorship. Great work @sdobney.bsky.social!

New research from #BiologyLetters: Why do birds construct nest tails? A test of disruptive camouflage in the blue manakin royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article... | #Behaviour #Evolution

Accepted! "Experimental study of social signaling through delayed plumage maturation in a colony-nesting seabird." A playback-and-model experiment coming to Animal Behaviour. Led by Molly Hill & @liamtaylor.bsky.social w/ Lily Fanburg @sdobney.bsky.social & me.

Now that's what I call #GullOfTheDay!

In the foreground, a young American Herring Gull with a drab, worn, brown, "predefinitive" plumage. This bird is probably ~12 months old. Behind, an older, breeding adult in a "definitive" gray and white plumage, which is probably 4 or more years old. We have little information about the ecology and evolution of delayed plumage maturation in seabirds.

A breeding gull attacks a plastic model as part of behavioral experiments at the breeding colony on Kent Island, New Brunswick, Canada.

Coco and Tracey Faber start painting raw plastic models for stimulus experiments, using photo references and museum specimens at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Excited that our paper is headed for publication at Animal Behaviour! - "Experimental study of social signaling through delayed plumage maturation in a colony-nesting seabird."

Our experiments show how the unusual, brown plumages of young seabirds can help reduce aggression at the breeding colony.

A white beluga surfacing in greenish-brown waters. Overlaid is the title of a new review published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology: Beluga Societies: the social and cultural lives of an enigmatic odontocete.

Our new review of beluga sociality and culture just dropped at Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology! Some of our key conclusions summarized 🧵
doi.org/10.1007/s002...
@marine-valeria.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @raincoast.org

"Bioacoustic Monitoring Reveals Patterns of Landscape Use by Migrating Birds at a Great Lakes Barrier Crossing." Using acoustic recorders along Lake Superior’s south shore, we recorded nearly 3 million songbird flight calls, uncovering a major migratory pathway. doi.org/10.1002/ece3...
#ornithology

Do birds have feelings? 🦉🦚🦅🦜
I'm a guest on The Warblers today, the podcast of Birds Canada. I answer a question about chickadee song. Nelsy Niño @nelsyninor.bsky.social answers a question about mimicry. Thanks for having us @birdscanada.bsky.social!
Listen here: www.birdscanada.org/warblerspodc...

Inter-brood interval affects offspring survival and fitness, and reflects timing of breeding and female quality. Our new paper on inter-brood interval appears in the new issue of Ibis, led by Hayley Spina and our collaborative Savannah Sparrow research team. @bou.org.uk @ryannorrissci.bsky.social

Celebrating 20 years of Canada’s Ambassador to Long Point – Stu Mackenzie For two decades, Stu Mackenzie has helped shape Long Point Bird Observatory into a world-class hub for migration science, training and global collaboration. From pioneering Motus to inspiring countles...

Looking for some inspiration? Stu Mackenzie is celebrating 20 yrs at Birds Canada. Truly one of a kind. Absolute legend @birdscanada.bsky.social #birds 🌿

"Grad student takes flight to map invasive plant." Sarika Sharma, an alum of our lab, is profiled in our campus newspaper for her research to map Phragmites in the Healthy Headwaters Lab. Congratulations Sarika!
www.uwindsor.ca/news/2025-11...
@ecofebria.bsky.social @ibiouwindsor.bsky.social

BIRDS & BEERS V is one week from tonight, Thurs Nov 20, in Windsor! 🐦🍺🐦🍺 An evening of fun with UWindsor researchers including bird trivia, ornithology talks, student posters, and a short film screening. All are welcome! @ibiouwindsor.bsky.social
Tickets: tinyurl.com/BirdsBeers5

I launched our latest Motus Audio recorder just outside Algonquin Park, with a generous assist from Motus collaborator @ryannorrissci.bsky.social. Let's see how many sparrows and thrushes are still on-the-move in mid-October.

Double brooding improves lifetime fitness. Our paper "Multigenerational fitness outcomes of double-brooding: a 30-year study of a migratory songbird" appears in the latest Behavioral Ecology: tinyurl.com/3hsyd42m. By @hayleyspina.bsky.social @ryannorrissci.bsky.social and our collaborative team.

A small all yellow-green slings to an Oak tree branch

Tomorrow is #OctoberBigDay! The simple act of volunteer scientists birding and submitting their lists to eBird all at the same time, produces a powerful dataset that helps us learn about bird migration timing and more! Here's a late migrating Oct #NorthernYellowWarbler that is heading to C. America.

Dr. Natalie Sánchez at a bird banding station in Costa Rica, holding a migratory thrush.

Dr. Natalie Sánchez has just been appointed as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in our Department of Integrative Biology at University of Windsor. Congratulations @natingui.bsky.social! I am so excited about the collaborations and research projects that lie ahead. @ibiouwindsor.bsky.social

Motus Audio recorders are now set up at Birds Canada headquarters in Port Rowan and at Old Cut Research Station at Longpoint Bird Observatory. Which bird species will we record flying southwards this fall? @birdscanada.bsky.social @ibiouwindsor.bsky.social [📷 N. Emerick & M. Bygrove]

It's "Birds and Reptiles Week" in the International Master's of Bioacoustics program. This week we're on campus at Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne. Today we had great lectures and workshops from Profs. Nicolas Mathevon, Ole Larsen, and Magnus Wahlberg. @nicolasmathevon.bsky.social

Our week of field-based learning has finished with a beautiful sunset, a campfire lecture, and a starry night. And a shockingly hard acoustic quiz. Can you differentiate a screaming deer, a creaking door, and a shrieking Nazgul? Next week: bird & reptile week on campus. @nicolasmathevon.bsky.social

Please share!🙏
🚨 PhD Oportunity in Avian Behavioural Ecology in Spain
The BirdBond Project (MNCN & IREC) studies how pair bonds form, change & affect reproduction/survival in the spotless starling 🐦

Sarah Dobney presented her doctoral studies at the International Bioacoustics Congress #ibac2025 in Kerteminde, Denmark. Way to go @sdobney.bsky.social!

We've launched a Motus Audio Recorder on Pelee Island! Natalie, Madison, and Nelsy launched our 10th recorder, which will survey migratory birds passing over Pelee Island this fall.
@ibiouwindsor.bsky.social @birdscanada.bsky.social @peleeislandbird.bsky.social

Thank you so much!

I've been loving the talks and posters being presented at #IBAC2025! Come see my poster today to learn about the "Songs of the studs" 🎤🐦🪺 @dmennill.bsky.social

Yay bioacousticians all around! <3 Come see me at the #IBAC session tomorrow - or anytime for coffee/bikes!

UWindsor students co-author scientific paper after immersive Paris field course <p><em>By Sara Elliott</em></p> <p>“The field course was a pivotal point in my academic journey because if not for my study abroad experience, I genuinely would not be in this lab and I wouldn’t be d...

"UWindsor students co-author scientific paper after immersive Paris field course." Today's campus newsletter has a write-up about our new paper, arising from our field course on Bird Song and Anthropogenic Noise. 🇫🇷🎶🐦 Check it out: www.uwindsor.ca/news/2025-07...

A landscape photo of a boreal forest. Overlay text reads "The challenge: We don’t know how birds are doing in much of the boreal forest because it’s too hard to survey in these remote regions."

A Blackpoll Warbler perches on a branch. Overlay text reads "A new window: Because monitoring programs rarely reach the far north, boreal bird migration in the spring and fall offers a way to track their populations using migration data from bird observatory counts."

A Blackpoll Warbler sings from a tree. Overlay text reads "An innovative method: Using the Blackpoll Warbler as a case study, researchers combined migration counts with feather isotopes. The feather chemistry helped reveal the origins of the birds, while migration counts provided insights into the changes in their populations."

A landscape shot of the Blackpoll Warbler's habitat. Overlay text reads: "The big picture: This approach will help us protect more species by identifying where conservation is most urgently needed."

The latest issue of Avian Conservation and Ecology (ACE) is out now!

Volume 20, Issue 1 features a variety of captivating bird research papers, including a new study co-authored by Danielle Ethier, Senior Scientist at Birds Canada.

Dive into this study and more at avianconservationecology.org