Locomotion studies at migration course

The international PhD-course on migration ecology is currently taking place at Lund. Nearly 40 students are attending from a great number of countries. After introductory lectures and presentations by the students themselves, the course now entered the lecture curriculum of a first day of Locomotion. Colin
Pennycuick lectures about migration performance calculations, Anders Hedenström on approaches for studying animal flight, Florian Muijres on fluid dynamics of flying/swimming, and Christoffer Johansson about animal swimming. The afternoon was devoted to a practical, where flight related m

orphology was measured for a number of (dead) birds, and then data then used to calculate characteristic performance measures about migration by using the software "Flight" that Colin Pennycuick has developed. The pictures show Colin Pennycuick advising students at the course, and the "published" results on the white board (to the right).

International PhD course has begun!

This morning it was time for the sixth version of "Ecology of Animal migration" to start, organised by CAnMove. This is an international PhD course and today we met 36 students from 17 different countries! We have also invited world leading lecturers and are expecting two weeks of interesting talks and discussions.

Newly arrived students, waiting for the course to start.

The whole class is gathered for the first lecture

Course assistant Rachel Muheim welcomes all students and lecturers

Today we will listen to Thomas Alerstam who talks about the history of animal migration and Susanne Åkesson who talks about Migration acology and CAnMove. The rest of the day we will listen to the students where they will share their work with the rest of the group. The day ends with some pizza together.

Moonwatching high

The last two evenings/nights Susanne and I have watched migrating birds against the face of the moon. The weather has been clear and with moderate winds aloft. We recorded the position of entry and exit on the moon's surface, imaging the moon is a clock. On Wednesday we observed 62 birds during one hour, and yesterday (Thursday) we noted 28 birds/hour. The directions were quite consistent towards the SW, and the observations suggest there was quite heavy migration traffic. We could hear scattered calls from redwings (Turdus lilacus) and robins (Erithacus rubecula), and last night also a flock of barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) was heard migrating. The moon will still be bright for a few more nights, and we challenge everybody to beat our current record of seeing 62 birds during one hour!

Anders Hedenström

Moon watching in "Naturmorgon"

For those who like to get up really early on weekends, this Saturday's "Naturmorgon" visits CAnMove and the roof of the Ecology house to practice some Moon watching!
If you think 06.14 is a bit early, you can of course also listen to the programme afterwards on Naturmorgon's web.