What a Thrush!

By: Luke Trittelwitz, AmeriCorps Avian Field Technician

Beaver Creek Reserve’s Citizen Science team was busy in the field during the month of June! Aside from Kestrel banding, bluebird monitoring, and MAPS banding, our CSC team joined a range-wide study to look at the life cycle of a bird listed as a special concern in the state of Wisconsin. The Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) is a medium sized thrush related to the Robin and the Bluebird. Found in dense wooded areas and known by their iconic song, Wood Thrush are part of the newest research at the Citizen Science Center! For the next two years, Beaver Creek Reserve has joined the Missouri Fish and Wildlife Service on their Wood Thrush study. This summer, our bird banding team captured and banded ten Wood Thrush using mist nets and audio lures. Once captured, the birds were equipped with a United States Geological Survey aluminum leg band, and on the other leg a blue plastic color band to help distinguish them from other Wood Thrush. The birds are also fixed with a small telemetry antenna that sits on their back. These antennas transmit information to any MOTUS tower the Wood Thrush fly past on their migration routes.

You may remember last year,  Beaver Creek Reserve installed two MOTUS towers. One tower is on top of the Wise Nature Center and the other tower is at our research property. The Motus Wildlife Tracking System is an international research collaboration that uses automated radio telemetry to track animals across the world! Listed as a species of decline in 25 states and Canada, tagging and tracking Wood Thrush allow scientists to understand their life cycle, their breeding and migratory ranges. Upon completion of this project, Beaver Creek Reserve and all of the other collaborators in North America will have deployed over 600 Motus tags on Wood Thrush. A project of this size that encompasses a species' whole life cycle will help scientists understand the areas of greatest conservation need for the Wood Thrush along with the potential threats that are causing its decline across North America. 

Beaver Creek Reserve is honored to work with the Missouri Fish and Wildlife Service. Thank you to Carpenter Nature Center for asking Beaver Creek Reserve to partner with them as the Wisconsin cohort. We would like to thank Eau Claire County Parks and Forests, local birders and the many private landowners who helped us achieve our goal of finding, capturing and tagging ten birds this June.

To learn more about the project or about MOTUS see the link below. This project is a two-year project. Next year, if you notice Wood Thrush on your property within 15 miles of Beaver Creek Reserve, we would love to have you join our project! Please reach out if you are interested. The links below can be used to learn more about Wood Thrush and Motus. 

Learn More about Wood Thrush: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Thrush/overview#

Beaver Creek MOTUS Blog: https://beavercreekconnection.blogspot.com/2023/07/its-bird-its-plane-its-motus-tower.html

Learn More about the MOTUS Program: https://motus.org/about/