iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

But that’s not what we find. Even in over 260 homing flights, we couldn’t detect any effect of magnetic disruption on their movements. In contrast, previous studies have shown shearwaters rely heavily on olfactory map and solar compass cues.

Image description: a figure from the paper showing navigational metrics across both treatments. These are: absolute deflection, deflection within 30 km of the colony, deflection at night, homing efficiency, time allocated to homing and orientation error predicted from compass calibration. None of the metrics shows a difference between treatments.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

To find out, we fitted shearwaters with tiny GPS-trackers and either a powerful magnet or a brass bead. The magnets disrupted the local magnetic field so birds carrying them shouldn’t be able to sense the earth’s field. If they rely on those cues to home, they should then take less efficient routes.

Photo description: Manx shearwater photographed immediately after tag deployment. The bird is held temporarily in a box with the tag attached to the feathers on its back.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Songbirds use a magnetic compass to migrate at night. But evidence from other, day-flying birds is mixed at best. So we decided to test whether one of the world’s best navigators (and best birds) needs the magnetic field to find its way home.

Photo description: Manx shearwater, a medium sized bird, white underneath and black-brown above, taking off from the sea. It’s facing left with wings stretched upwards and legs kicking creating splashes on the water.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

But despite this improvement in recapitulation of the learned route, we saw no improvement in homing efficiency for pairs during testing - collective memory did not translate into collective intelligence. We suspect that with a longer period of forgetting, this association might emerge.

A figure showing homing efficiency index on the y axis and end of training or memory test on the x axis. The figure is split between data from the treatment which did not get extra training and those that did. In each case, the pairs have slightly higher homing efficiency at the end of training than solo birds. However, homing efficiency is lower in the memory test and there is no clear difference between pairs or solo birds. This suggests that collective intelligence has not resulted from the better memory of the baseline routes in pairs.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

After this period of forgetting, we tested them either in pairs again, or solo. We found that pigeons released in pairs took routes much closer to their original training routes ✅ and this effect appeared larger than expected from the solo route of the best performing partner 🥇

Figure showing paired and solo testing routes from one of the release sites, compared to their baseline routes. The paired test route appears much closer to the original baseline route than the solo route. To the right is a box and whisker plot with the average distance to the closest baseline route on the y axis. On the x axis are labels saying the end of training and memory test. Within each of these levels, the data are split into pair and solo treatments. At the end of training, there is no clear difference in distance from the baseline route for pairs or solo birds. However, during memory testing weeks later, the pairs are much closer to the closest baseline route than the lone birds, on average.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Groups of homing pigeons 🐦🐦 learn idiosyncratic routes from release sites and faithfully recapitulate these, even when released alone 🐦 We trained pigeons in pairs until they formed consistent routes, then stopped releasing them at those sites for a few months to let them forget their route ❌🧠

Diagram of the experimental setup, with a 11 training releases for pairs of pigeons, followed by 3 paired and 3 solo releases to baseline their routes and performance before forgetting. Half the pairs then got another 8 training releases and a further baseline. This was followed by either 8 or 5 weeks of no training in each group. Afterwards, birds were tested in their pairs or alone, in randomised order.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Fantastic day trip to Falsterbo as part of the animal migration course here in Lund. Glossy ibis, rough-legged buzzard, waxwings, black kite, great grey shrike and twite amidst hundreds of finches, thrushes and wood pigeons overhead.

A long-tailed tit (with pure white head).

A flock of migrating red kites with one black kite tagging along.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

Autumn getting into full swing at our Oxford ringing site today 🍂 62 birds, mostly blackcap and chiffchaff. Highlights were the first willow warbler of the autumn, a juvenile female Sparrowhawk, a rare pulse of acros for the site and the hoped-for addition of tree pipit to the site ringing list!

Image description: a reed warbler in the hand. The bird‘s right side is visible, warm brown all over, with its head and long pointed beak facing right.

Image description: a sedge warbler in the hand. The bird, facing right and away, is mottled brown and black across its back and wings. It has a strong pale supercilium above the eye.

Image description: myself holding a juvenile female Sparrowhawk. The bird is held towards the camera and is looking to the left. It has dark grey upperparts with chestnut fringes on the feathers. The underparts, including tail, are white with dark brown barring. It has yellow legs with curved black talons, a round bright yellow eye and a yellow hooked beak, tipped with black.

Image description: a tree pipit in the hand, showing the characteristic strong supercilium and deep chunky beak. The bird has green-brown upperparts with black markings, and pale yellow-buff underparts with strong dark streaks.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Had a great time at #EOU2025 meeting ornithologists from across Europe, seeing their work and exploring a beautiful part of North Wales. Thanks to @eounion.bsky.social and the local organisers @bangoruniversity.bsky.social for a brilliant conference and for the poster prize!

Image description: A view towards Snowdonia from across the Menai Strait. The Menai Bridge is visible to the left with the mountains rising in the background and the strait between reflecting a bright blue sky.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Ever wondered how animals know where they are? Or how they find where they need to be? The answer is that they have maps and compasses built into their heads! Excited to see this new review of map-and-compass navigation led by Joe Morford out in Animal Behaviour @asab.org doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

Image description: figure from review titled Map and compass navigation: the mechanism and ontogeny of animal maps. The figure shows how environmental cues can vary in predictable gradients through space, generating unique cue combinations at each location. The second part of this figure shows how animals may respond to these cue combinations, either treating them as discrete cue-location associations, or as continuous gradients. These differences may lead to differences in navigational strategies and performance.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

The cuckoos also returned repeatedly to the tree right above us, giving amazing views of singing and fighting!

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

A very quiet first reedbed session of the year. But our first sedge, reed and Cetti’s warblers of 2025 made it worth it. Amazing to be surrounded by two male cuckoos chasing and battling over a female for hours! Not sure she was impressed…

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

More signs of spring today with two sedge warblers, one willow warbler and two whitethroats singing at Iffley, plus a small passage of swallows overhead. Supporting cast of Cetti’s warblers, blackcaps and chiffchaffs against a backdrop of snake’s head fritillaries.

Three snake’s head fritillaries in flower, with one white one.

Snake’s head fritillary flower in the foreground with others of various colours behind.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Spring slowly advancing this am in Oxford. Fantastic to ring our first willow warbler of the year among a flush of blackcaps and a lovely bullfinch. I also heard my first willow warbler yesterday just outside my door. Seemed to be singing somewhere in Elder Stubbs - great to hear them in the city!

Willow warbler in the hand after ringing under licence.

Male blackcap in the hand after ringing under licence.

Female bullfinch in the hand after ringing under licence. Photo credit: Alex Figueiredo.

Female greenfinch in the hand after ringing under licence.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

My 1st paper showed that range shifts caused by climate change🌡️📈can result from individual flexibility in migration, and shearwaters that migrate further have to travel faster on the way home 🏃 They do that by anticipating the longer distance from the start, using memory of their route! 🧠 4/8

Balearic shearwater carrying a light-level geolocator to track its migration (photo by Pep Arcos).

Figure showing A) how the migratory range of Balearic shearwaters has shifted northwards over 10 years B) how the proportion of shearwaters migrating further north to Biscay has increased with sea-surface temperature and C) how individual shearwaters have shifted where they migrate as temperatures have risen.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

My own research focuses on mechanisms of navigation, trying to translate what we’ve learned from captive model systems (eg homing pigeons 🐦) to wild shearwaters 🗺️ One of the best bits of my research has been getting to do field experiments on some beautiful seabird colonies! 2/8

Me watching Arctic terns breeding at Copeland Bird Observatory as the moon rises.

A view from the cliffs of Skokholm island as the sun sets.

The Northern Lights in the sky above Copeland Bird Observatory.

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Patrick Lewin @plewin.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Hi everyone 👋 A long overdue first post on here and an introduction to who I am and what I do 🪶 I’m Paddy, a DPhil student researching navigation in birds as part of the OxNav group. You can take a look at the kinds of things we do here: oxnav.org but I’ll tell you a bit more about myself🧵 1/8

Me holding a Manx shearwater at Copeland Bird Observatory whilst its burrow was being checked for data collection.

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