American Oystercatcher Tracking Program Evolves With GPS

The tiny backpack you see fitted on this American Oystercatcher is a solar-powered GPS/GSM transmitter. It weighs round 10 grams (lower than 3% of this hen’s complete physique weight) and is fitted to the hen utilizing a leg-loop harness, utilized by a educated biologist.

The small photo voltaic panel recharges the battery, enabling the transmitter to function for years with out upkeep. It data GPS coordinates at a set time interval and transmits it through a GSM (mobile) community to our analysis database, offering day by day knowledge.

In partnership with Wildlife Biologist Min Huang of the Connecticut Division of Power and Environmental Safety, we match 5 oystercatchers with transmitters this 2025 breeding season.

The implausible 5 didn’t understand it, however they had been our pilot group of birds!

EXPANDING BEYOND BANDING

For years, Audubon employees in Connecticut has been becoming birds with field-readable leg bands, every with a novel alpha numeric code. This permits researchers and the general public to re-sight particular person birds with binoculars or a recognizing scope. Together with this season once we banded 13 new birds, we’ve got banded a complete of 63 grownup birds, composing 28% of Connecticut’s breeding inhabitants, along with 30 fledglings.

The re-sights are submitted to the American Oystercatcher Working Group band database. We’ve discovered that our Connecticut breeding birds are overwintering throughout a wide variety from New York right down to the west Coast of Florida.

The GPS/GSM transmitters are an essential development of this program. With common, detailed mapping of oystercatcher migration routes and stopover websites, we intention to establish essential fall and winter habitats for oystercatchers and work with companions throughout the hemisphere to co-develop conservation plans.

FIVE BIRDS, DOZENS OF DIFFERENT ROUTES

The 5 GPS/GSM transmitters had been deployed on the mouth of 4 main rivers in Connecticut. Two had been deployed on a breeding pair at Lengthy Seashore in Stratford, one on a breeding feminine at Sandy Level in West Haven, one on a recaptured male at Griswold Level in Outdated Lyme, and the remaining transmitter on a breeding feminine at Bluff Level in Groton.

At Lengthy Seashore, the feminine (fitted with yellow leg band N92) and male (fitted with yellow leg band N93) had sadly suffered a nest loss simply earlier than transmitter deployment. Each adjusted properly to the brand new monitoring units – nonetheless they cut up up quickly after.

The feminine (N92) left Lengthy Seashore and traveled 12 miles to Cockenoe Island in Westport, usually visiting close by Goose Island in Norwalk, then again to Cockenoe. There, she was noticed with a brand new mate however sadly didn’t efficiently nest once more.

In mid-August, N92 flew again to the Stratford and Milford Level space to hitch the staging flock of oystercatchers. On September 30, she started her fall migration, stopping in Cape Lookout, North Carolina earlier than persevering with to her last wintering location – bouncing forwards and backwards throughout the border of Georgia and South Carolina.

Her unique companion, N93, didn’t remate. He returned to the identical staging space, joined the identical group, and started his migration on September 30, additionally stopping at Cape Lookout, North Carolina earlier than settling for the winter at Horseshoe Seashore off the west coast of Florida.

The opposite three birds fitted with transmitters have up to now been tracked to Virginia, the west coast of Florida, and the marshes of New Jersey simply north of Atlantic Metropolis. Fairly a ramification!

NEXT STEPS FOR THE TRACKING PROJECT

We have now discovered a lot about our 5 Connecticut breeding American Oystercatchers to-date and picked up an unimaginable quantity of information.

Our colleagues from Manomet in Virginia have already captured pictures and video of N92, and people surveying the west coast of Florida have additionally gotten a photograph of N93.

Going ahead, we hope to increase the mission, begin knowledge evaluation, and work with companions to establish conservation priorities that may form future administration efforts.

Right here in Connecticut, we will be taught extra concerning the birds using our offshore islands to nest, and we will higher examine feeding conduct – from the locations birds forage, to the distances they fly to search out meals – and the way it all impacts their chicks’ survival.

*All banding, marking, and sampling is being performed below a federally licensed Fowl Banding Allow issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Fowl Banding Lab.