The latest Motus receiver to join the network has been established at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory in Kent.
In the calm before the Storm Dennis - or rather, between two storms, thanks to Storm Ciara having graced our shores - we arrived at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory in Kent, to erect the latest in what will hopefully be a long line of Motus receivers and antennas in the UK.
Already a significant migration and ornithology tool in Canada and the USA, Motus was started by Bird Canada and Acadia University in 2012/2013. The Motus network is a collaborative setup of automated telemetry receivers and radio antennas, placed in key locations to monitor movements, both migratory and more localised, of birds and bats through detection of uniquely-coded minature radio tags (or, 'NanoTags'). There are details of project partners and the specifics of how the tags and receivers work on the Motus website (https://motus.org) and on the HORC website - see top panel 'Motus telemetry'. Motus provides a really great opportunity for movement and migration research in the UK, not only because it is collaborative and will be widespread (we envisage every bird observatory having a station!), but because the tags are so tiny (as low in weight as 0.2g!) that they can be used on smaller species, which have previously not been tracked.
In October 2019, Spurn BO became the 6th site to obtain a receiver, and now in February 2020 Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory (SBBO) becomes the 7th Motus station in the UK, creating a small cluster of south east bird observatories with the new tech! This includes Dungeness BO also in Kent, and Landguard BO in Suffolk, the latter of which has already detected the arrival of migrating birds from northern Europe! If stations in the UK are already detecting European migrants in the short timeframe over which they've been operating, and given that compared to the USA and Canada, relatively few tags have been deployed, imagine what we will be able to find out when we have a whole network of receivers and regular deployment of tags!
The installation
Most Motus receivers and antennas are installed on existing structures, to make life easier and to make sure they are high enough to get a good range on detections. The antennas can potentially pick up tagged animals from ~10km away, but for this to be the case the antennas need to be high enough to avoid being blocked by nearby buildings and/or trees.
At Spurn in October, the receiver was attached to poles dug into standalone foundations (see Motus page on this site for a picture) but at SBBO, the birdwatching tower (see picture below) provided a decent location onto which we could attach the receiver and 4 Yagi 5-element antennas.
To avoid hanging out of the side of the tower whilst trying to attach the antennas, we needed a cherry picker to get us up there, so thanks goes to Vinnie at Awkward Access for his services and to Ewan Parsons for all of his hard work constructing the SensorGnome receiver and getting in the cherry picker!
After much deliberation, it was decided that we would split the 4 antennas and put 2 on each side of the tower, to increase the range and avoid any signal blockage from the tower itself. The 5 metre poles were attached to the side of the tower using rigid metal brackets, and after a couple of hours, we had the first two up!
By 5pm, the other side was complete, and connected to the receiver by some thick coaxial cables, and the receiver and antennas can now be seen on the Motus website (Receiver Locations)! This exciting development will hopefully allow us to detect more species crossing the channel and the southern North sea area, providing us with a better understanding of migration routes, timings and durations.
See our Project aims and species page for more information.
The Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory Motus receiver and antenna range:
