It was a Sunday, and Kaly Adkins looked at her work phone anyway. She read the group text. A Lewis’s woodpecker traveling from Montana had pinged the new Motus tower. It worked.
Adkins, the east region wildlife diversity biologist for ODFW, and a team had just helped install a wildlife tracking station in the Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. They were anxiously waiting for such a ping, to confirm that the system was functioning.
Motus stations are like cell towers, except they’re just for picking up the signals of tagged passing wildlife. A passing (tagged) bird or bat can “ping” a tower, which then sends information to a website. This provides researchers with real-time information on when and where the animal is traveling, which is critical to understanding Oregon’s species diversity, migratory routes, key habitat, and more. But you never know when info will come, or what will ping the station.
“I was standing in my kitchen and it was like a sigh of relief to have it working, “Adkins said. Even better? The individual woodpecker that pinged the tower just happened to be part of a collaborative project that Adkins helped support. “That was wild,” she said.
Tracking Individuals
Lewis’s woodpecker is a Federal Species of Concern and listed as Sensitive in Oregon. There’s a lot we don’t know about where or when these birds are moving and Motus technology can help fill data gaps, she said. Adkins supported recent work to track Lewis’s woodpeckers and outfit birds with tags (solar-powered tiny backpacks that transmit locations to Motus stations) to study migratory patterns. It was serendipitous that one of these birds was the first to fly by the newly-installed Klamath Basin Motus station. Since then, one robin and four different Lewis’s woodpeckers have pinged the Klamath tower, including one bird tagged as part of an ODFW-sponsored Lewis’s Woodpecker migration study.
It underscores why Adkins and others are champions of this technology. Until recently, folks had limited options for tracking the movements of individual birds, especially small birds, and accessibility and price point were limiting factors. This is changing. Adkins has helped install nine Motus towers in the last five years, with three more slated for the spring. This Klamath marsh tower is Oregon’s 23rd Motus station and is located in a sea of vital wetland habitat, on a critical flyway for migrating birds. Thousands of these towers are up in 34 countries around the world and interest is growing.
Tools of the Trade
Installing towers themselves requires a specialized skill set, adjacent to electrical engineering, to work with antennas, cables, computers, and solar panels. Adkins didn’t balk at the challenge.
William Blake, Pacific Northwest Motus coordinator for American Bird Conservancy, pulled bolts, electrical tape, drills and more from bags—like Mary Poppins. Blake’s an expert voice in Motus know-how and was mentoring Adkins on the set-up this fall, having traveled from Montana to help install the Klamath tower.
“This was kind of a miracle,” Blake said. Installing the station had complications and seeing a priority species ping the tower was even remarkable, he said.
The team walked out of the marsh when the job was complete, just as a storm was rolling in. Pronghorn were spotted in the distance. Coyote loping in the long grasses.
“Seeing the importance of this place and things we can learn brings glimmers of hope that we are moving the needle,” Adkins said. “I’m excited for the future.”
Jen Newlin is a science writer in Portland, Oregon. Project partners include Bird Conservation Oregon, American Bird Conservancy, Wildlife Consultant Ken Popper, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Lakeside Farms, Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, The Nature Conservancy, Klamath Tribes, Bureau of Land Management, ODFW’s Oregon Conservation and Recreation Fund and NRCS. Special thanks to the Greenfield-Hartline Habitat Conservation Fund for funding this project and to Midstate Electrical Cooperative, Inc. for donating time and resources to the Klamath installation.
