| Summary: | The western Great Lakes region is home to one of the most diverse breeding bird communities in North America and is a key migration pathway for a wide array of species, including neotropical migrants and birds that breed in boreal ecosystems. To better understand and document how birds move in this region, we focused on two applications of automated radio telemetry technology: 1) large- and small-scale (local) movements of birds during the non-breeding season (i.e., migration and winter), and 2) local movements of breeding Common Terns and dispersal behavior of both adult and juvenile birds. Our goal was to assess the utility of using Motus automated telemetry technology at various spatial scales and on a variety of species to study different ecological questions. First, to study timing and behavior of fall migration along the shores of Lake Superior, we focused on two species: Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) and Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus). Second, we focused on Rusty Blackbirds in the St. Louis River Estuary to document the temporal and geographic use during their fall migratory stopover. Rusty Blackbirds are among the most rapidly declining bird species in North America, but the reasons driving these declines are unknown; a lack of suitable habitat during the migratory and non-breeding seasons is likely a contributing factor. Thousands of Rusty Blackbirds use the north shore of Lake Superior and the SLRE as a migration corridor each spring and fall, yet habitat use and duration of stopover is poorly understood. For this reason, we used automated radio tracking technology to document stopover duration of individual birds in relation to minimum daily temperature and to assess potential differences between sex and age. Third, we focused on documenting winter movement patterns of Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) in an urban-forested landscape: Hartley Park, Duluth MN, USA, to assess how detection rates related to minimum daily temperature and food availability at feeding stations. ...
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