<
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/tens-of-thousands-of-tiny-tags-are-revealing-the-secret-lives-of-birds-180985022/>
"Well before ornithologist Lucas Berrigan embraced technology to find out where
birds travel around the world, he started bird-watching around his home. At
around 10 years old, anytime he heard a new call in Nova Scotia, he’d search
out the bird. At 14, he went to a remote station on Bon Portage Island, just
off the southwest coast of Nova Scotia, to learn how to band birds. At 15, he
was hired for a seasonal job on the island conducting a bird census route each
morning and banding the animals. For college, he stayed close to home and
attended Acadia University, where he majored in biology. He remained there for
a master’s in 2016 and studied the behavior of Swainson’s thrushes, using a
wildlife tracking system called Motus, which launched in 2014. He found that
the birds often made short flights close to sunset, possibly to calibrate their
celestial compass, and credits that discovery to Motus.
Motus, which is Latin for movement or motion, is an international network that
uses automated radio telemetry to track small flying animals. The system, which
is run by Birds Canada, is made up of three components: tags, receiving
stations and a centralized database that can be accessed online.
Field researchers put tiny solar- or battery-powered radio transmitters on
birds, bats and even flying insects like dragonflies and butterflies. The tags
weigh as little as 1/200th of an ounce, and they are only put on if they weigh
less than 3 percent of any animal’s body weight—so they don’t cause harm. Each
tag costs about $250, so they are much less expensive than satellite tags,
which Berrigan says often cost somewhere between $2,000 and $10,000. Those more
expensive tags have the benefit of being able to load their information to
satellites over a broad geographic area—while radio tags need nearby receiver
stations with antennas to upload data. But compared to heavier satellite tags,
the radio tags can go on smaller animals. Since 2014, researchers working with
Motus have tagged almost 50,000 animals of nearly 400 species. When one of
those animals flies by a receiver station that has an antenna, that
individual’s location is recorded.
Motus has put up more than 2,000 receivers in 34 countries around the globe.
The receivers cost between $3,000 and $15,000, according to Berrigan, and can
detect animals up to nine miles away, though the range depends on terrain—as
features like mountains can get in the way. The receivers either store the
recorded data on a device, or, if they have Wi-Fi or cell service, upload the
data to servers where it gets processed."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
