We completed our 39th field season on 8 August 2020 despite limitations on personnel due to pandemic restrictions this summer. Our work on fluctuating selection on colony size continued, and we managed to collect reproductive success data on birds at over 50 colonies. The season was hot and dry, and reproductive success was much lower than in 2019. We believe this reflected lack of food, as flying insects seemed reduced in abundance during the hot and dry conditions. Paradoxically, some of the later colonies active in July this year seemed to do best, partly because the hottest weather of the summer was in June. This may also reflect fluctuating selection on laying date.
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