Dr Steve Portugal, The University of Oxford

It’s been a busy few weeks. Two weeks in Cambodia proved successful working with wild Siamese Fighting Fish. Just prior to departure, we had our first RHUL-Imperial mini conference, organised by myself and Joe Tobias, which was fascinating and good fun too. Lab member Dan Sankey presented his new data on pigeons at the 6th Biologging conference, and the ZSL Avian Senses conference was excellent (thanks to Hannah Rowland for inviting me to talk about Secretary Birds and Vultures).  A busy week in the office setting up project students, and now off to Cape Town (to visit Susan Cunningham and Claire Spottiswoode) before continuing onto Pretoria, to work on the fascinating Bathyergidae with Prof Nigel Bennett. First time there, so suitably excited.

We have two new members joining our lab group, MSc by Research students Rhianna Ricketts (right) and Miranda Reynolds (left). Rhianna will be working on social structure and individual recognition in birds (pigeons), and Miranda on the metabolics of avian brood parasitism.

Our new Review paper is out in the Journal of Fish Biology. All about the amazing air breathing Anabantoid fish. You can read it here!

Our new pigeon paper is out in Journal of Experimental Biology. Led by PhD Lucy Taylor. All about how pigeons fly differently depending on how familiar they are with their surroundings. You can read it here.

I recently interviewed Chris Packham about his career, and to see what tips he had about how young people could begin their careers in science communication and science media. You can read the interview here!

Our paper on Greater Ani eggshells has been accepted in the journal Ibis. More to follow. All about how the rare mineral, vaterite, acts as a shock absorber in the eggs of these unusual communally nesting birds. This work was done in collaboration with Christie Riehl (Princeton) and James Bowen (Open University).

Our new paper on body temperature in migrating ducks is out in Frontiers in Physiology. You can read it here!

 Our paper on eider migration and body temperature has been accepted in Frontiers in Physiology. More details soon. Magella Guillemette (UQAR) leads the study.

Bit of prize success for PhD students Lucy Taylor and Dan Sankey. Lucy won best poster prize at the Annual Main Meeting for the Society for Experimental Biology (with “Fellowship of the Wing”), and Dan won best talk at the annual RHUL Symposium. Nice work.

Our new paper on pigeon laboratory behavioural traits and subsequent homing is out in Phil Trans B. You can read it here!