Ankeny Hill Nature Center
Motus Data Terminal
This is the terminal for the Ankeny Hill Nature Center's Motus receiver.
This system uses antennas like those (seen on the left) to listen for messages from unique radio tags attached to wildlife by researchers worldwide. Different size tags can be attached to birds, bats, or insects. When an animal with a Motus tag flies into our receiver's range, its signal is decoded, and information specific to that individual is displayed here. Under ideal conditions, tags can be detected up to 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) away. The tag must be in the antenna's line of sight to be noticed. The receiver may not see birds on the ground or blocked by trees and hills until they take flight.
"The Motus Wildlife Tracking System (Motus) is an international collaborative research network that uses coordinated automated radio telemetry to facilitate research and education on the ecology and conservation of migratory animals."
- motus.org
Motus is the Latin word for "movement."
Learn much more about Motus and explore the global dataset by visiting https://motus.org/
Credits
The Ankeny MOTUS receiver site is made possible by a generous grant from the The Oregon Conservation & Recreation Fund and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and with support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Salem Audubon Society, and the Friends of the Willamette Valley Wildlife Refuge Complex.
*Motus is a program of Birds Canada in partnership with collaborating researchers and organizations. https://motus.org/
This site has been developed using Motus data access tools courtesy of Bird Studies Canada. 2015. Motus Wildlife Tracking System. Port Rowan, Ontario.
Available: http://www.motus-wts.org.
* Citation: Birds Canada (2022). motus: Fetch and use data from the Motus Wildlife Tracking System. https://motusWTS.github.io/motus.
Ankeny Hill Motus Tower. Schramm, Rich1
Motus Technology Used in Migratory Movement Research
Contributed by Vickie Stiteler
Volunteer Ankeny Hill Nature Center
It’s rare to see birds in flight during migration. They typically fly high to elude predators and at night to keep from overheating. But we can track them, thanks to Motus towers and the technology that detects signals from the receivers on tagged birds. While this data is exciting to those who use the Motus kiosk at Ankeny Hill Nature Center, it has been a game changer for researchers.
Before Motus, researchers tracked birds by placing bands on their legs. They then had to recapture that bird to obtain valuable data. Now researchers can attach small nanotags to migrating birds, which send signals detected by Motus towers, like the one on the north side of the Ankeny Hill Nature Center.
By tracking the movement patterns of migrating birds, such as the direction of flight and length of stay in a location, researchers can make informed decisions about threats to vulnerable species and ways to protect their diverse habitats.
The Swainson’s Thrush (SWTH) is one type of bird tracked this way. During this year’s fall migration, the Ankeny Motus tower detected nine SWTH traveling to their winter home in Central America. Seven of the nine were tagged by Dr. Debbie Wheeler, biologist/entomologist at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia.
Dr. Wheeler works collaboratively with the Vancouver Avian Research Centre, tracking bird activity in Colony Farm Regional Park in Coquitlam, BC. Her goal is to use information gathered from Motus to improve understanding of migration patterns and behavior of SWTH and define their migratory path along the Pacific flyway.
Wheeler’s study tagged 20 SWTH at the Colony Farm site. That means the Ankeny tower detected 35% of her study population.
Dr. Wheeler says, “All we really know about our SWTHs is that they head for South America in the Fall, and we have had quite a few recaptures of banded birds when they have returned in the Spring, so we do know they show high site fidelity for summer breeding grounds. The Motus data is starting to show some favoured migration routes - unfortunately, we probably don’t have enough tags to draw any strong conclusions, but the results so far are interesting.”
Another goal of Dr. Wheeler is to use Motus to identify potential migratory pathways of SWTH to determine migration and molt-migration patterns. Molting and migration take a lot of energy, so these activities don’t overlap for most birds.
However, SWTH is a species that can undergo molt-migration. They leave their breeding grounds and travel partway south, searching for a suitable location with abundant food and low predator risk.
They might complete their molt in this location or continue to migrate while molting. Wheeler hopes to establish evidence that birds breeding further north in Canada stop at Colony Farm to start or complete their annual molt on their way south.
The success of Wheeler’s research depends on the number of Motus towers on the SWTH flight path. And while the number has gone up significantly in the last five years, she says, “We just need more data from Motus stations further south. We have several birds that appear to have settled in Mexico, but I suspect they have gone further south, but there are fewer stations down there.”
Knowing that research success depends on tracking towers, Vanessa Loverti, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional shorebird biologist has placed Motus towers in Oregon and Washington, including the tower at Ankeny.
She is researching migratory pathways of shorebirds along the Oregon and Washington coasts. She says, “The cost of putting up a Motus tower is much more feasible for our partners and uses a collaborative research network for avian conservation, which provides valuable information like length-of-stay, timing of migration to the breeding ground, and data on unpredicted stopover sites.”
Access to Motus technology and the data it generates dramatically helps with the researchers’ work. As more towers are built and more birds tagged, Motus will play an increasingly important role well into the future. The Ankeny Tower will be part of that, and we will be curious to see if any of Dr. Wheeler’s birds pass the Ankeny Tower when they return to their summer grounds during spring migration.
Image Source: Vancouver Avian Research Centre, 2022 July.
Fitting a Motus tag, July 2022 [Video].
Swainson’s Thrush with Motus micro-tag wires attached.