A lovely collaboration with @coralinebcht.bsky.social, @mmoiron.bsky.social, Nathalie Kürten and @oscarvedder.bsky.social.

Finally, egg volume, pointedness, elongation and polar asymmetry decrease across the laying order of the eggs within clutches, which may be part of the brood reduction strategy we know common terns adopt.

In addition, females produce larger and spottier eggs as they grow older, but females producing large and spotty eggs are also most likely to disappear from the breeding population, suggesting large and spotty eggs to be more costly to produce.

Using photographs of 1589 eggs from 687 clutches produced by 330 females, we show repeatability of egg characteristics to be high both within and among years.

Fingers crossed for all the talk and poster contents to make it into the Trilateral Governmental Conference to be held in May 2026 in Denmark, and thanks so much to both the organisers and attendants of the #ISWSS16 for working hard to make this happen!

Given that there are various other pressures that my team and I have not even studied yet, these results are alarming, and show a need for multi-faceted conservation action, a need shown by many other talks and posters at the symposium as well.

I showed how (i) food availability has shown a steady decrease across the study period, (ii) climate change in the wintering areas relates to a delayed onset of reproduction, (iii) levels of mercury pollution are high, and (iv) avian influenza (#HPAI) has led to a 70% decline of the population.

I was also lucky enough to be given the chance to talk about the Banter See common terns. Although they are protected against two major threats that many birds breeding in the Wadden Sea region face – predation and flooding – other cumulative pressures still affect them too.