Learning Where the Birds Go

The September, 2021, issue of The Highlands Voice had a story of the installation of tracking equipment at the Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory in Monroe County.  While birders have been going there for years to see and count migrating birds, the new equipment made it possible to track any of the birds which have been tagged.

       The Monroe County site is part of the MOTUS Wildlife Tracking System.  The information that a tagged bird was detected in Monroe County becomes part of its data base.  Anyone who wishes to see where that bird’s travels have taken it can go to a web site and find out.

To use this tool, go to the site listed below.  There you will find a list of birds whose signals were recently captured.  Clicking on a particular bird takes you to another page where you can choose “map.” Clicking on “map” will generate a map of the bird’s migration path.

Here’s the link where the fun begins: 

https://motus.org/data/receiverDeploymentDetections?o=0d&id=7878&fbclid=IwAR1PNQqAOktwLnBO8s3leE9M29_NoDXUNs7o7T1nqLmgK4A35nyJQ0FtH6U