Play With Your Radios And Help A Good Cause

Dave Marshall, Fri Aug 03 2007, 05:50AM

Below is an article that was recently posted on a couple mailing lists for my local radio clubs. My comments are below the article.

Hams and Monitoring Enthusiasts Needed To Help Loggerhead Shrike Project in August 2007

By: Joe Moell K0OV

Wildlife Preservation Canada, Dr. Ryan Norris at the University of Guelph, and Dr. Bridget Stutchbury at York University are collaborating on a project to radio-track migrating Loggerhead Shrikes from one of their breeding colonies in Ontario to their wintering grounds.

The Loggerhead Shrike is a fascinating bird that, despite being a songbird, is also a bird of prey and often impales its prey on hawthorn spines, barbed wire fences, or other sharp objects. This bird, once common throughout Canadian grasslands, is now critically endangered and only a few dozen individuals remain in the wild. In 2001, Wildlife Preservation Canada began a captive breeding and release program in Ontario.

This year we will be radio-tracking shrikes to monitor their survival and dispersal patterns and to identify migration routes and wintering grounds. Although hundreds of birds have been successfully reared and released in Ontario, few have returned in consecutive years. Very little is known about these birds once they leave Ontario, and this research will allow us to better assess the success of the captive-breeding program and help to identify migrationroutes and wintering grounds.

Beginning in late July and throughout August 2007, twenty five captive-bred juvenile loggerhead shrikes will be equipped with transmitters in the 172-173 MHz range, expected to last between three and six months. These birds will also be color banded.

"Almost nothing is known about the migration routes and the over-wintering location of Ontario's Loggerhead Shrikes, however, it is believed that Ontario birds will fly south through the eastern USA toward Florida and other southern states. We would greatly appreciate the help of any individuals that are able to monitor the frequencies of our birds along their migratory route and in their potential wintering grounds. If you locate a bird, please record the radio tag frequency, the exact location and, if the bird is visible, the color and order of the bands on each leg. We expect migration to begin in late August and early September, and will provide further information before that time."

More information on this and other projects will be posted on this Homing In site page as it is received. For e-mail notification of these updates, subscribe to the Biotrackers mailing list by sending e-mail to **link**. The subject line and text are ignored. To prevent spam, only subscribers may post and all new subscriptions must be approved by the List Moderator.

At other pages of this site, you will find stories of previous volunteer wildlife monitoring/tracking efforts, ideas for suitable receivers and antennas, a sample tag signal file, plus other tips on hearing and verifying wildlife tags.


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You'll have to join the yahoo group to get any really meaningful info, but once I get back stateside on Monday I'll join up, and I can answer questions in this thread for people who can't or don't want to join.

I have a little expierence tracking animals with radio tracking devices. Its pretty easy on larger animals like deer and bear, as the transmitters are fairly powerful and the animals are slow moving. Its likely that this will be a bit more challenging. Most likely you're going to just hear a minute or two of telemetry as the bird flies overhead, unless it happens to roost near you. Range on such a small transmitter isn't likely to be more than half a mile. Perhaps a few miles if the bird is airborne and you've got an external antenna.

I've got a spare communications scanner and a VHF vertical that should do nicely, so I'll just set it up with some vox software and let it scan 24/7.

Anyone else interested?

Dave