Sarah Kendrick, guest blog author, is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Biologist and MMN Telemetry Initiative Chair.
As Chair of the MMN’s Telemetry Initiative, I’ve spent the last 6 years building partnerships to assist in the incredible growth of the Motus Network across the Midwest. The Motus Network is an array of radio towers that collect information from tiny transmitter tags attached to birds and other wildlife that pass by the stations across the hemisphere. Motus is increasingly becoming a powerful tool to help us understand wildlife movements across the landscape and during migration. With the tremendous growth of Motus, I am excited to finally be able to leverage the network and build upon broad partnerships to the launch the Range-wide Wood Thrush Motus-tagging Project with Colombian bird-conservation partner SELVA. With the project’s launch this summer, over 60 partners from state agencies, federal agencies, and non-profit organizations came together to be a part of the largest Motus project of its kind, all to learn more about the survival and movements of the iconic Wood Thrush.
Why Wood Thrush?
The Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) is a medium-sized songbird of eastern deciduous forests that is known for its flute-like, ethereal, ee-oh-lay song that echoes through the shady mature forests of the eastern US and Canada. This thrush acts as a flagship species for full annual cycle conservation work in the Neotropics and is a priority species for conservation in 25 U.S. states’ State Wildlife Action Plans and holds threatened status in Canada. Improving our understanding of the ecology of this species’ full annual cycle through the collection of migration tracking data is essential to better understand conservation needs throughout its full range and to improve the design of targeted habitat management actions. The Wood Thrush can also hold a Motus tag large enough for the battery to last over a year, which made it a great candidate for an ambitious Motus tagging project.
The Pitch
In spring 2023, I approached state wildlife agencies via Nongame Bird Technical Sections of the Mississippi and Atlantic Flyway Councils, asking if they were interested in participating in this large-scale research study.
Our project goals were to:
- Deploy Motus tags on Wood Thrush across their breeding range in the eastern U.S with help from local researchers. We challenged state wildlife agencies and other organizations to fund 25 tags in their state and deploy those tags using permitted professionals.
- Deploy Motus tags across six countries across the Wood Thrush wintering range, in partnership with nonprofit Colombian partner SELVA based in the neotropics.
- Compile unprecedented range-wide data for the Wood Thrush, leading to better understanding of local movements prior to migration, site fidelity, migration timing and routes, and inter-annual survival.
Proof of Concept
Remarkably, many states and Ontario signed onto the project to participate! SELVA and I developed a standardized tag deployment protocol for Wood Thrush which we had piloted back in 2020. And then in spring of 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Birds unit hosted a Wood Thrush Motus-tagging training workshop, engaging 15 participants from 7 states, while working in close partnership with Willistown Conservation Trust in Pennsylvania, Birds Caribbean, and Kentucky Game and Fish staff.
The project officially kicked off in May 2024 and as of late July 2024, project partners across the eastern U.S. and Ontario have deployed 563 tags on Wood Thrush across 26 states and Ontario! This winter, SELVA plans to deploy over 100 more Motus tags in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica and a second year of breeding-season tagging will occur in 2025.
I’ve been really overwhelmed by the response to this project and optimistic to see even more large-scale tagging efforts in the future. I want to share a huge thank you to all the Wood Thrush project partners and faithful Motus-heads out there who have installed and maintain stations to support science – we hope to put all your stations to good use tracking Wood Thrush in a few short weeks.
Please stay tuned for further updates – and keep your eyes peeled when you encounter Wood Thrush this fall – you may just see a Motus tag on its back.
For more information on the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, visit:
- Motus
- Missouri Conservationist article, March 2024
- Motus webinar with Missouri River Bird Observatory, winter 2023