Signals in the Sky | Audubon

As migratory birds journey 1000’s of miles throughout continents annually, scientists and conservationists are discovering new methods to grasp the place birds go, the place they cease, and what habitats they should survive. One of the vital promising instruments for answering these questions is the Motus wildlife monitoring system — a global collaborative analysis community that makes use of automated radio telemetry to trace the motion and conduct of small animals, similar to birds, bats, and bugs, as they migrate throughout landscapes and flyways.

In Washington, native Audubon chapters are serving to develop that community in significant methods.

South Sound Chook Alliance and Kitsap Audubon Society have each funded and put in Motus towers within the Puget Sound area, contributing priceless knowledge to a rising international conservation effort. Their work helps researchers higher perceive migration patterns alongside the Pacific Flyway whereas participating group members in hands-on conservation.

For Kathleen Snyder, president of South Sound Chook Alliance and challenge supervisor for the chapter’s Motus efforts, the initiative started with a easy spark of curiosity.

“I examine one other Audubon chapter placing up a Motus tower in Southern California, and I simply thought, ‘That is cool. That is hands-on,’” she stated. “It felt like a extremely good approach to get folks engaged.”

That inspiration led South Sound Chook Alliance to put in a tower at a fish hatchery in Hoodsport alongside Hood Canal in 2024 (Hoodsport Motus Station #15271). Volunteers helped establish the best location, set up gear, and coordinate with state businesses and companions, together with the American Chook Conservancy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The tower is now owned by the Washington Division of Fish and Wildlife and continues contributing knowledge to the Motus community.

South Sound Chook Alliance is now supporting the set up of two further Motus towers in Baja California, Mexico, by way of partnerships with native nonprofit organizations learning Pacific Flyway shorebirds.

The primary station is deliberate for set up on the Autonomous College of Baja California Campus within the Todos Santos Bay, the place it is going to complement two present stations. This new web site will improve our capability to trace chicken actions inside the bay—an space of excessive significance for seabirds—and lies alongside a serious migratory hall for each coastal and terrestrial species. The second station shall be put in close to Laguna Figueroa, enhancing our capability to observe the actions of the Snowy Plover and the Least Tern, each endangered species.

Each towers are anticipated to be operational in time for fall migration.

At Kitsap Audubon Society, long-time member Jamie Acker first grew to become inquisitive about Motus towers after studying in regards to the potential for these stations to detect migrating birds.

“I had completely no information of the method, however thought it was a fairly cool means for science to go. So, I began poking round and came upon what it might take to arrange a station. We be taught a lot extra than simply banding a chicken and releasing it,” he stated. “Motus offers us info we’d by no means in any other case have.”

Kitsap Audubon helped fund and set up a Motus station at Level No Level (KAS-PNP #13927), overcoming important logistical hurdles involving the Coast Guard, energy entry, and knowledge transmission.

To this point, the tower has detected three birds: a Swainson’s Thrush, a White-crowned Sparrow, and a Dunlin. The Dunlin (#61240) was particularly memorable as a result of it was detected by the tower twice. It was tagged on the Colusa Nationwide Wildlife Refuge in California in December 2024. In early April, it traveled north by way of Central California, turned west to the coast on the Oregon border, and made a number of pit stops alongside the coast because it traveled north. Then it abruptly turned inland, crossed the coastal vary, and bought picked up at Nisqually earlier than getting detected at Level No Level. It will definitely reached Little Egg Island in Alaska, the place it seemingly bred, after which reversed its course.

“Motus exhibits us simply how essential the Puget Sound is as a stopover habitat for shorebirds,” Jamie stated. “It helps us perceive what birds actually need and why sure locations are essential to guard.”

As local weather change and habitat loss proceed reshaping migration patterns, Motus expertise helps conservationists establish essential stopover areas and make science-based choices about habitat safety.

For Washington’s Audubon chapters, these tasks characterize greater than expertise. They’re examples of native communities contributing to worldwide conservation analysis — one tower, and one migrating chicken, at a time.