Motus has Landed!

With the installation of a humble antenna, Chicago joins a global scientific community working to reveal the secrets of migration. In partnership with the Chicago Park District (CPD), COS had funded and erected an antenna as part of the Motus wildlife tracking system, a network of receivers designed to help scientists track migrating wildlife like birds, bats, and butterflies on their epic migration journeys. This is the first such receiver in Chicago and Cook County, and one of only a handful operating in Illinois.

But what is Motus? Until fairly recently, tracking birds was an expensive and rather limited proposition. Bird banding has been a cheap and effective tool for centuries, but only tells you where a bird was first caught and where it happens to be caught again. If you want to understand the routes that birds take, you need the help of more advanced technology. These tracking technologies, up until a few years ago, were very expensive and so bulky that only the largest birds could be fitted with tracking devices without harming or stressing them. But a recent revolution in micro and nano technology has blown the possibilities wide open.

Motus is a multi-national partnership that involves partners erecting radio towers/antennae. These antennae have a several kilometer radius and are designed to pick up the special radio frequencies that tagged birds emit. If a bird (or any other animal) with a Motus radio tag passes within range of an antenna, it is pinged and sends that data to a central online hub. Anywhere the bird goes that there is an antenna, the data is recorded. The more antennae there are, the more information we have about where that bird goes and when. All of the data is then cleaned by the Motus team and made publicly accessible online. With cost-effective technology now available to track birds of any size (even critters as small as butterflies), the network of Motus towers and antenna has exploded. Partners of every scale from non-profits like COS, to scientific institutions, to government agencies, to private individuals are chipping in to expand the network and further this novel collective wildlife research project.

Chicago sits on a major migratory flyway which sees billions of birds pass through every year. Surprisingly, despite this significance, there were no active Motus receivers anywhere in Chicago—until now! In 2018, COS began the planning process of identifying potential antenna locations, undergoing special training, and acquiring the necessary parts. Finally, in October of 2021, the Calumet team assembled the Motus antenna and associated computer from scratch, erected it on the roof of the newly opened Ford Calumet Environmental Center at Big Marsh Park, and hooked it up to the Motus network! By placing and maintaining this and planned future Motus towers in Chicago, COS is pushing the rapidly growing Motus network to new heights and helping to greatly improve our understanding of bird movement not just in Chicago but across the continent.

The antenna is just the latest in a suite of scientific, conservation, and education initiatives that COS is undertaking on the Southeast Side with the exceptional support of the Chicago Park District, starting with the establishment of a bird banding station at Big Marsh Park in 2019. Given our long standing partnership, the Calumet region’s known significance to birds year round, and the new center at Big Marsh’s mission to educate and conserve birds, it makes sense that our first tower should be located here. Doing so will also continue our joint efforts to bring recognition and attention to the work being done to restore and remediate healthy habitats and communities on the SE Side.

We are thrilled to finally bring Motus to Chicago, grow our partnership with the CPD, significantly further COS’s conservation initiatives, and put Chicago at the forefront of urban conservation and science. This is just the first of hopefully many such antennae/towers that COS plans to build and maintain in Chicago and beyond. And finally, we are especially thankful to COS members whose support enables us to do this ground breaking work.

If you have further questions about this project or would like to volunteer to help expand our work, email us at calumet@chicagobirder.org!

If you would like to donate to help us expand Motus in Chicago, click here:

For more information about our Calumet Initiative and partnership with the Chicago Park District, visit:

For more information about birding, restoration, and recreation at Big Marsh Park, visit:

For more information about Motus, visit: