Jennynlper

By Jennynlper

Pre-flight checks

... before take off into enemy territory. Having had a (splendid) holiday in Gozo a couple of years ago, thanks to my generous son, I became horribly aware of how much song-bird shooting, from dawn to dusk, occurs in the autumn on Mediterranean islands. These martins are not only flying huge distances to Africa, they've got to get past all the guns.

Here's some info off the BTO website:

The House Martin is well known to many people; from April to September it lives cheek by jowl with those lucky enough to have this energetic little bird nest under their eaves. In recent years, however, the number breeding here in the UK has fallen by two-thirds, leading to the species being amber listed as a bird of conservation concern and in need of some help.

Whilst we know a lot about the breeding ecology of the House Martin in the UK, once September comes and this enigmatic bird heads off for the winter it virtually disappears from our radar. It is not known where in Africa House Martins winter, or how precisely they get there. If we are to start to understand what is driving the decline of this wonderful species, then it is these questions that we will need to answer.

This summer, the BTO aims to use the latest technology to discover the routes that House Martins take to Africa and to answer that great ornithological mystery, exactly where do they spend the winter months? BTO researchers plan to do this by fitting a tiny (shirt button-sized) device known as a geolocator. Weighing less than a gramme, the device contains a clock, a calendar and a light sensor, together with enough memory to store all of the data collected from the day it is fitted until the day it is retrieved.

By comparing daylight length, as measured by the light sensor, with the time and date recorded, scientists at the BTO are able to determine where on the planet the device was at any given time. This information will then reveal the wintering areas, together with the location of possible stopover and refuelling sites, precise migration routes and the timing of the migration through Europe and Africa.

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