Dr Steve Portugal, The University of Oxford

We’ve been busy getting our museum collection professionally photographed for new educational and outreach purposes.

Co-supervisors Emily Shepard and Dora Biro spent Friday at Royal Holloway discussing experiments and plans for Dan Sankey’s PhD. Lots of good discussions and mince pies.

Congratulations Rebecca McGoran on graduating from your Masters with a Distinction, for your work with the Siamese Fighting Fish. 

Our paper on white-headed vulture vision has been accepted in Ibis. This paper shows how these vultures show visual field characteristics of hunting raptors, which fits evidence from the field that this vulture species does not just feed on carrion, but rather captures live prey.

Thrilled to be invited to join the Biology Letters Editorial Board, and look forward to starting in the New Year.

Our paper on social networks, dominance and perch choice in pigeons and cormorants has been accepted for publication in Ibis. This paper contains lots of Undergraduate project data, which is great. More information to follow.

Our Secretary Bird work was featured on The One Show on BBC1 tonight.

Busy week this week with two talks, in Manchester (MMU Evolution Research Day) and Royal Holloway (with some ATP tennis in between), before heading off to Australia at the weekend for a couple of weeks for visits with a collaborator to write a review paper, and then a conference talk at the ANZSCPB Sydney.

The final submission date for NERC DTP applications is January the 4th. Due to this earlier than expected date, the application deadline for the CASE Studentship with the RPSB has been moved to December 1st (5pm).