Bird 'backpacks' to uncover swift secrets

Last modified: 30 June 2016

A new project to find out where migrant birds forage in Northern Ireland has taken flight, thanks to a partnership between RSPB Northern Ireland, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the Northern Ireland Swift Group.

In a first for conservation science in Northern Ireland, this summer dozens of swifts will be fitted with tiny GPS ‘backpacks’ in a bid to shed light on key feeding areas- something which has previously been impossible to monitor.

During June and July, experts will safely re-capture the swifts, some of which have been previously tagged as part of a BTO and NI Swift Group migration study, to fit them with newly-developed miniature tracking devices which weigh less than one gram.

Being used for the first time in Ireland, and building on work carried out by the BTO over the previous two summers, these devices will record the locations of the swifts at approximately hourly intervals with an accuracy of just a few metres, revealing the feeding behaviour of nesting swifts in unprecedented detail.

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'Backpack birds' return with data to solve mystery of purple martin population decline

Nature Canada's Purple Martin Project is part of an international effort to restore declining population

By Chloé Fedio with files from All In A Day, CBC News Posted: Jun 04, 2016 6:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jun 04, 2016 10:07 AM ET

Purple martins equipped with tiny GPS backpacks have returned to Ottawa from as far as Brazil with data Nature Canada researchers hope will help solve the mystery of the bird's declining population.

Nature Canada conservation manager Ted Chesky was part of a team that extracted the backpacks from the migrational birds at the Nepean Sailing Club in May where the birds live in individual apartment-like man-made roosts. 

"We put specialized traps just on the holes where we were pretty sure we had backpack birds," Chesky told Alan Neal on CBC Radio's All In A Day on Monday.

After the birds are trapped, their itty-bitty tracking devices, no bigger than a thumbnail, are removed, he said.

"Basically, there's a little harness, a little tether that goes around their body and we just clip it off with scissors. It comes off and we measure the bird and a few things like that then let them go," Chesky said.

Nature Canada's Purple Martin Project is part of an international effort by researchers and naturalists to restore the declining population. A thread-like antenna on the so-called backpack tracks the migration of a bird.

"With the geo-locators, we learn how fast they can do it and how much time they take at different points along the way, which is very interesting," he said, explaining the journey south is slow but the return north is quick in the spring.

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