Ripples by Kennedy Zittel, naturalist
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System (Motus) is an international collaborative research network that uses radio telemetry to better understand migratory animals. By placing small radio transmitters on migratory animals (such as birds, bats, or even insects) those animals’ movements can be tracked by stations across the world.
Stations are scattered along major migration routes – antennas that can pick up the signal emitted from a radio backpack that the animal has on – creating a path of travel for that animal. This way of tracking wildlife allows scientists to see where the animals are going across their entire migration route – allowing for more data to be collected while remaining cost and time effective. Motus data has been used in hundreds of academic publications regarding migration behavior, stopover sites, habitat use by those animals, and more.
Woodland Dunes Nature Center was one of the first Motus stations in Wisconsin. Luckily, now there are many more and the more stations there are, the better the data is. We now have two stations on our preserve, one is located in our State Natural Area, while the second is attached to our building. Since our first Motus station was installed in 2019, we have gotten dozens of detections of animals passing by, including various shorebirds as Soras and Red Knots to Swainson’s Thrushes and Whip-poor-wills, and even the occasional bat.
Woodland Dunes is at an optimal location to detect migratory animals. Since we are so close to the shore of Lake Michigan, a route often traveled by migratory animals, our preserve is used as a stopover site for many of those animals. They stop at our habitats to rest and refuel before continuing their journey. Our Motus stations can detect animals traveling past in multiple directions, thanks to our giant antenna system on our roof (check it out the next time you stop by), which can collect data from any animals passing through the area.
Last week data was collected from both stations and we were able to see what species passed by within the last few months. One of those detections I was especially excited to see! You see, during the fall Saw-whet owl migration, when former executive director Jim Knickelbine and I were sitting in the banding shack discussing how neat it was that Cedar Grove’s Ornithological Research Station had placed radio transmitters on some of the Northern Saw-whet Owls that they had caught during their banding operations, one of those owls passed right by us. Sure enough, right when we would have been banding Saw-whet owls, one of the tagged owls from Cedar Grove was detected at our Motus Station. We did not recover any owls in our nets with a radio transmitter (how cool would that have been!), but at least we know that one of them stopped by.
Bird banding and Motus are two ways to gather information on where birds migrate. Both are incredibly valuable for gathering information that allows researchers to not only better understand where animals are going and when but also allows us to see what habitats these animals are using so we know what areas need to be focused on to ensure that those animals can continue to use it. If you are interested in learning more about Motus or even looking at the data that stations across the states/country have picked up, visit https://motus.org/
Photo: Motus tag on Red-shouldered Hawk by Nancy Nabak