Tagged cuckoo question

[Wild-Woman]

Roy- thanks for the information. Very interesting. I didn't realise there was a size difference between the sexes, but it makes sense to use the bulkier birds. I suppose there will be migration differences between the sexes as the males need to get back and set up territories before the females arrive.

There's so much to migration. We're really only scratching the surface of understanding it fully. The tags will certainly contribute to our knowledge.

I wonder if they'll get these tags small enough to attach to a Dragonfly one day. You'd be in your element with all that feedback Roy!

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

Roy- thanks for the information. Very interesting. I didn't realise there was a size difference between the sexes, but it makes sense to use the bulkier birds. I suppose there will be migration differences between the sexes as the males need to get back and set up territories before the females arrive.

Don't quote me on the size difference thing - I did say that I'd need to look it up to confirm that this is the case!

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

There's so much to migration. We're really only scratching the surface of understanding it fully. The tags will certainly contribute to our knowledge.

Satellite technology has so much potential for advancing our knowledge - but it's too expensive to be widely used at the moment.

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

I wonder if they'll get these tags small enough to attach to a Dragonfly one day. You'd be in your element with all that feedback Roy!

There are already tags that can be used on much smaller creatures, but there are trade offs in the quality of information provided by smaller tags.
The BTO have also been working on a Nightingale project, using what they call "geotags" rather than "satellite tags". I'm not sure what the differences are, but it does show that tracking can be used on smaller birds - one Nightingale was tracked al the way back to its (assumed) wintering quarters.

[Ukwildlifeo]

Originally Posted by RoyW

The BTO have also been working on a Nightingale project, using what they call "geotags" rather than "satellite tags". I'm not sure what the differences are, but it does show that tracking can be used on smaller birds - one Nightingale was tracked al the way back to its (assumed) wintering quarters.

If I remeber correctly these dont broadcast a signal and use the amount of daylight combined with the time to work out where the bird is. This data is stored and then I think they have to catch the bird when it returns.

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Ukwildlifeo

If I remeber correctly these dont broadcast a signal and use the amount of daylight combined with the time to work out where the bird is. This data is stored and then I think they have to catch the bird when it returns.

That rings a bell actually - for this type of tag to be useful they are relying on the birds sucessfully returning to the same area (which many birds do) and being caught again - so the rate of return is far less guaranteed than it is with the satellite tags.