An avian research station in the South Bay has installed the first of three radio towers that will be able to track migrating animals — from birds to dragonflies — with more accuracy and at a lower cost than ever before. The key is giving them miniscule, walkie-talkie backpacks.
The tags are lightweight radio transmitters, called nanotags, housed in a small plastic casing that is mounted on the creature with elastic bands. Each tag has a unique signature that it emits day and night that is detected by the Motus antenna closest to it. When a tag is within range of a Motus station, the tag ID, time, bearing, signal strength and other data are recorded by the sensor array at the station.
Current knowledge about the migratory movements of small animals are broad strokes of data, acquired slowly and painstakingly, that paint a blurry image of the most important journey that an organism takes in its life. The beauty of a Motus tower for landbird biologist Dan Wenny at the S.F. bird observatory is that it eliminates practically all of these roadblocks while maintaining data integrity.
Birds aren't real