Tracking Coastal Bird Migrations: Offshore Wind Energy Implications

Pam LoringU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Division of Migratory Birds

P. Paton

Funding & Project Management

Cooperators

S.Tucker

Digital VHF Telemetry – a solution?

• Light-weight (0.25+ g) “nanotags”

• Digital code (unique identifier)

• >500 tags on shared frequency

Migratory Connectivity Project

Tracking Nanotags: Active & Automated Telemetry

Antennas (range 10+ km to flying birds)

Mast (this one is 40 ft)

Solar panel

Electronics box with receiver

Automated Radio Telemetry Tower

Pilot Studies in Northwest Atlantic

Common Terns (2013-present)

American Oystercatchers (2013)

P. Paton

P. Paton

2015 Expansion – Listed Species

Roseate Terns Piping Plovers

Objectives

• Quantify flight patterns

• Estimate exposure to wind energy areas

• What factors influence movements?

• Weather – wind speed, precip, visibility

• Temporal – time of day, seasonality

• Demographic – age, sex, reproductive

success?

Common Terns (2014)

Great Gull Island (n=51)

Monomoy Is. (n=70)

Tagging Locations

• Digital VHF transmitter (1.5 g)

• Burst interval 5 seconds, operational life 160 d

• Back-mounted with glue and sutures

Tag Attachment

P. Paton

P. Paton

Great Gull

Monomoy

Movie

Example of WEA Crossing Event (103 total)

Visibility (m)

Cox Model: Rate of WEA crossing events relative to …

Gender

Wind speed (m/s)

Nesting Colony

Monomoy Great Gull

Precipitation (mm/s)

NARR data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/

Parameter1Parameter

estimate

SE

(robust)

Hazard

ratio

Z-

scoreP-value

Colony (Great Gull) 2.385 1.1510 10.86 2.07 0.038

Sex (Female) 1.108 0.3902 3.03 2.84 0.004

Windspeed (m s-1) 0.6317 0.1881 1.88 3.36 < 0.001

Visibility (m) < -0.0001 < 0.0001 0.99 -1.67 0.095

Colony (Great Gull) : Windspeed 0.4116 0.1149 1.51 3.58 0.001

Colony (Great Gull) : Visibility < -0.0001 < 0.0001 0.99 -2.02 0.043

Windspeed : Time -0.0273 0.0079 0.97 -3.44 < 0.001

Visibility : Time < 0.0001 < 0.0001 1.00 2.89 0.004

Results of Top Model

Terns From Great Gull 10x more likely to cross WEAs

Females 3x more likely to cross WEA

Pro

bab

ility

of

No

t C

ross

ing

WEA

Days Since Hatch

Pro

bab

ility

of

No

tC

ross

ing

WEA

Days Since Hatch

WEA Crossing – Time of Day

Summary

• Variation by nesting colony – productivity driven?

• Females more likely WEA crossing vs. males

• After hatch: higher wind speed & lower vis

• Post-breeding: lower wind speed & higher vis

• Movements occurred during day & night

• Technology addressed information gap

P. Paton

Piping Plovers (2015)

Rhode Island (n=25)

Monomoy Is. (n=25)

Tagging Locations

Migratory departure data from 34 plovers

Migration Routes

Timing of Migration

Understanding the complex lives of migratory animalswww.motus-wts.org

Motus Stations 2013-16

• > 325 receiving stations

• >100 research projects with >150

collaborators

• ~8,000 animals of >90 species (birds, bats, insects)

• >200 million detections

Motus Stations 2013-16

Movie of Brownian Bridge model here…

Current and Future Directions

P. Paton

2016 - 2017

USCG

Buoy-based Station

Thank you!

P. Paton