Motus...

If you've ventured out to the rice fields at Caw Caw lately, you'll have seen a new addition to the skyline: a Motus antenna!

You might've thought that there's someone out there that really needs to watch TV, but that's not what this antenna is for, and the best description of the antenna's function is described by its official name: The Motus Wildlife Tracking System.

The Motus Wildlife Tracking System (motus.org) is a global, collaborative research network that uses automated radio telemetry to study the movements of birds, bats and large insects. Tiny, digitally encoded tags are safely attached to an animal by researchers, and are detected by receiving stations on the landscape.

The program is run by Birds Canada, the leading national charitable organization dedicated to bird science and conservation in Canada, and along with collaborating researchers and organizations, provides a platform to collect valuable data on animal movement and behaviour.

Motus tags are among the smallest tracking devices available, enabling researchers to monitor a wide range of birds, bats, and large insects. Each tag emits a unique signal, allowing the simultaneous tracking of thousands of individuals.
Motus stations record detections of tagged animals within their range, logging the time, signal strength, and receiving antenna. This data helps researchers infer information such as an animal’s behaviour, timing, direction, and speed of movement.

Data from Motus stations is either downloaded manually or transmitted to Birds Canada, where it is processed and stored in a permanent archive, and researchers have full access to the raw data for in-depth analysis, while the general public can explore visually summarized data.

For instance a visit to the Explore Tab on the Motus website will allow you to zoom in on the Stations map to find the tower at Beidler Forest where you can see how many and what species have been recorded by the tower there!
Pass your cursor onto the trails of those animals, and you'll see the species name, where it's traveled, how far, and average speed!

In a joint project led by Kristina Wheeler and Jennifer Tyrell of Audubon South Carolina, with the assist of the Caw Caw Maintenance Dept., and CCPRC Lead Stewardship Aide Caroline Heape, much progress has been made in installing the Caw Caw antenna, so very soon we'll be able to see what birds and animals are passing through, perhaps on their migrations to far away places!