Satellite tracking of a Hobby Falcon

[SANBoPC]

Thought this might be of interest to some, if nothing else the telemetry of tomorrow will be of interest to most.
Regards
Trevor

Dear all,

German raptor specialists B.-U. Meyburg and K. D. Fiuczynski have,
apparently for the first time, used a 5 g solar satellite transmitter to
track a female adult Hobby Falcon (Falco subbuteo) breeding in Germany
slightly northwest of Berlin as far as Zimbabwe near Bulawayo. These little
transmitters have not been on sale so far. No other birds have apparently
been tracked over a long distance with the few experimental transmitters of
this size produced by Microwave Telemetry, Inc.

The bird which had been trapped near the nest in August had reared young and
continued to behave normally after deploying of the transmitter.

Before arriving in Zimbabwe, the bird spent long time in southern Angola.

There are very few ring recoveries of the species in Africa. Using this
tiny transmitter is a pilot project. Now we are very anxious to see the
bird come back to its breeding territory in spring.

For more info on our raptor tracking work please visit:

www.Raptor-Research (http://www.raptor-research/).de

Happy NEW YEAR

Bernd Meyburg

[PenelopeP]

Will definitely be interesting to see if this Telemetry becomes available to Joe public in the near future.

[AvianManagement]

Will definitely be interesting to see if this Telemetry becomes available to Joe public in the near future.

Yes it will.

They are testing it at the moment.

I had the owner of the compnay here a month or so back and he was showing me the details of the 5g unit, very impressive.

We currently use a 20g unit of theirs

[SANBoPC]

Yes it will.

They are testing it at the moment.

I had the owner of the compnay here a month or so back and he was showing me the details of the 5g unit, very impressive.

We currently use a 20g unit of theirs

Could you give us a "fools guide" on how they work?

For those who haven't worked out how google works here's the link http://www.microwavetelemetry.com/Bird_PTTs/index.php . I guess the cost might keep them out of the reach of your average falconer

[Brady]

My friend fits these little solar power tracking tags to hen harriers mostly in the forest of bowlems i think its called. I was at his house recently an he showed me some of the birds flight patterns from the last breeding season.
Brady

[SANBoPC]

While reading the microwave telemetry website I can across the following under their FAO section which I found very fun:

Can I use one of your transmitters to track my spouse? (http://microwavetelemetry.com/Bird_PTTs/FAQs/trackspouse.php)
Unfortunately, no. In the agreement made between Service Argos and NOAA, the Argos system can only be used for legitimate environmental research. So, unless your spouse is certified by a government agency to be a threat to the natural environment, we doubt whether you would be given permission to use the system!

:lol::lol::lol:

[Hatchero]

i can probably help you out help you out on this. these units operate on the ARGOS system. the location is done by doppler reading in most cases. the satellite uplink takes a fair amount of power so the small units only get very few locations(often once a week or so). the location data is not usually available in real time so it takes a while to get the data. you have to by the data from ARGOS, the data is expensive and can run around $3000 to $10000 per transmitter. the cost of the transmitters is usually around $3000 but can be more. because the location error can be fairly large you are only going to know the area in which the bird was. a couple of years ago a researcher gave a paper on the home range of a fence post at the Raptor Research meeting. the data showed that one of these PTTs strapped to a fence post had a fairly large home range--it was pretty funny. in studies where the animal has to be actually located they will often use one of our transmitters embedded in the PTT. There are several companies that make these units, if you like i can give you there contact info.
Jim

[AvianManagement]

i can probably help you out help you out on this. these units operate on the ARGOS system. the location is done by doppler reading in most cases. the satellite uplink takes a fair amount of power so the small units only get very few locations(often once a week or so). the location data is not usually available in real time so it takes a while to get the data. you have to by the data from ARGOS, the data is expensive and can run around $3000 to $10000 per transmitter. the cost of the transmitters is usually around $3000 but can be more. because the location error can be fairly large you are only going to know the area in which the bird was. a couple of years ago a researcher gave a paper on the home range of a fence post at the Raptor Research meeting. the data showed that one of these PTTs strapped to a fence post had a fairly large home range--it was pretty funny. in studies where the animal has to be actually located they will often use one of our transmitters embedded in the PTT. There are several companies that make these units, if you like i can give you there contact info.
Jim

The newer models have built in GPS units, not the 5g one, and give an accuracy to a meter or so.

[Hatchero]

The newer models have built in GPS units, not the 5g one, and give an accuracy to a meter or so.

yes this is true but they cost even more and have have the same problem with real time tracking. the battery is also a problem from a weight/fix standpoint. as i said before they still use beacons for real time location.
Jim

[BladeRunner]

I know Andrew Jenkins (SA) and a few biologists in Russia were satellite tracking Calidus Peregrines from Siberia to SA. What became of the project? Another interesting group is the Falcon Research Group based in the states. They have spent a considerable amount of time trapping and fitting satellite transmitters to Tundrus Peregrines and have come up with the most amazing info eg one bird flying 560 km in 24 - 28 hrs, though might have been longer. Another project I think the Peregrine fund should innitiate is the Malagasy peregrine (F.p. Radama) as it would be interesting to see if they migrate to our African shores. Having seen some photos of their juvs it would be exceedingly difficult to differentiate between the juv Minor and Radama.

[SANBoPC]

Just an update on the Hobby for those interested.
Trevor


Intercontinental migration of a Hobby Falcon (Falco subbuteo) tracked by means of a 5 g satellite transmitter



B.-U.Meyburg, P. Howey & K. D. Fiuczynski

When using telemetry as a study method, the weight of the transmitter should not exceed 3 % of the body mass of the bird under study in order not to unduly impair the bird and thereby falsify the study results. This still excludes many bird species from satellite telemetry studies.

On 9 August 2008 an adult female Hobby (weight 265 g) was fitted near Berlin (Germany) with a new type of transmitter which was still in the trial phase. The transmitter was a solar transmitter weighing only 5 g with a Doppler Argos location device. After departure on migration in the second half of August, with a short rest from 6 to 13 September on the island of Elba off the west coast of Italy, migration continued at first in a southerly direction as far as North Africa. From Libya (20 September) the bird flew in a SSW direction and reached the most westerly point of its migration route on 30 September in western Nigeria close to the border with Benin. After an initial swing of 90° towards the southeast, the falcon took a southerly course from 8 October in Cameroon. It maintained this course until reaching its main wintering area in southern Angola on 17 October. After more than 2 months it then continued migration in a south-easterly direction and arrived in western Zimbabwe on 29 December. From there it flew further to the east, reaching the most southerly point of its migration route between Bulawayo and Harare in central Zimbabwe on 1 January 2009. The length of the outward migration route from the nest site, excluding regional movement in Angola, was 10,065 km up to this point.

The Hobby migrated from here to the north without a rest. This smallest and lightest satellite transmitter produced to date delivered astoundingly high numbers of good Doppler fixes (LC:2 and LC:3).

[SANBoPC]

A quick update on the Hobby -

Dear All,

The adult Eurasian Hobby which we track since last August by means of a 5 g solar-powered satellite transmitter is on its way back to the breeding area in Germany near Berlin. One day ago it arrived in Algeria some 600 kms away from the Mediterranean coast. I reported about this pilot project already some time ago.

We are very anxious to see the little falcon come back again to its old
breeding site.

More than 5,700 Hobbies have been ringed in 10 European countries in
1909-1998, but there has been not a single ring recovery south of the Sahara desert.

I would be very interested to learn about any ring recoveries south of the
Sahara, if indeed any exist.

By the way, the transmitter is a prototyp and not commercially available.

Kind regards,

Bernd Meyburg

Prof. Dr. B.-U. Meyburg
E-mail: BUMeyburg@aol.com (BUMeyburg@aol.com)
www.Raptor-Research.de