Most of us humans stayed close to home over the past 18 months, but the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t impact birds’ incredible migration journeys. This summer, researchers with the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) and the Forbes Biological Station partnered with TWI to install three Motus towers at our Dixon Waterfowl Refuge in north-central Illinois to learn more about birds passing through the area.
UIUC researchers installing one of three Motus towers at the Dixon Refuge in summer 2021. Photo by Vera Leopold/TWI.
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System, or Motus for short (Latin for “movement”), was developed by Birds Canada in partnership with other researchers and organizations. This international research network uses radio telemetry to track and study the movements of small animals. Each 30-foot-tall detection station can pick up and automatically record signals from any radio-tagged birds or wildlife that come within a roughly 10-mile radius. Because the towers are all monitoring the same frequency, the same tagged animals can be detected by any station in the network across a large geographic area, providing a wealth of information about the timing, patterns, and pathways of wildlife migration.
“Here at TWI, staff have known about Motus towers for a few years, especially through our involvement in the Bird Conservation Network,” said Vera Leopold, TWI’s grants manager and resident birder. “Given that 279 bird species have been recorded so far at the Dixon Refuge, plus its important location along the Mississippi Flyway, we knew there would be great potential for learning more about bird migration by placing one at the Refuge. We’re excited to see what data from the towers reveal about wetland birds.”
The towers erected at the Refuge in summer 2021 are among 14 placed so far across northern and central Illinois that will be used by researchers at UIUC and the Forbes Biological Station to track the migration of wetland birds such as Wood Ducks and Least Bitterns. This fall, Forbes scientists will also live-trap Virginia Rails and Soras at the Refuge and attach small radio tags to the birds. They hope to better understand how individual rails use stopover habitat like the Refuge on migration and to gain further clues about their larger migratory patterns.
The UIUC and Forbes researchers communicate with other scientists as part of the broader Midwest Migration Network, which has a goal of expanding the coverage of Motus towers across the U.S. Midwest and Canada. The new towers at the Dixon Refuge make TWI’s restoration site part of a rapidly growing network of research projects. So far, there are 1,263 Motus towers installed across 31 countries, tracking the movements of 253 different species of animals, including birds, bats, and even large insects.
This map shows the locations of Motus detection stations across the United States (click on the map to go to motus.org to zoom in or out on the map).
“We look forward to future detections of birds by the Dixon Refuge towers and others in our Illinois network, as each detection contributes to further understanding of bird migratory behavior,” said Michael Avara, avian lab manager with UIUC’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. “The findings can then be used to better inform our decisions with regard to conservation.”
Once installed, Motus towers need little maintenance and can record data year-round. TWI staff will extract data every couple of months from the Refuge towers, which run on solar power. We look forward to reporting back on the information gleaned from our towers about the travels of the Refuge’s avian visitors. And never fear, the towers have been installed at the Refuge in places where they won’t ruin the vista for human visitors!
To learn more about Motus towers, visit motus.org.