Patrick Lewin

@plewin.bsky.social

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Behavioural ecologist interested in movement, navigation and collective behaviour, especially in birds | Postdoc in the Portugal Lab, Oxford, looking at visual guidance of flight in homing pigeons | DPhil on Manx shearwater navigation | BTO ringing trainer

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.
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.
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.
The lighthouse at Falsterbo.
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 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.
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.
Male cuckoo singing from a tree just above our heads.
Two male cuckoos chasing behind a female who calls repeatedly.
Three snake’s head fritillaries in flower, with one white one.
Willow warbler in the hand after ringing under licence.
Balearic shearwater carrying a light-level geolocator to track its migration (photo by Pep Arcos).
Me watching Arctic terns breeding at Copeland Bird Observatory as the moon rises.
Me holding a Manx shearwater at Copeland Bird Observatory whilst its burrow was being checked for data collection.