The Motus system is a global network of receiving stations that tracks the migration of nanotagged flying wildlife. We participate in Motus by deploying nanotags on Monarch butterflies and birds, and when they fly past receiving stations the network picks up their signals, collecting migration data. We also participate by raising funds to install receiving stations, adding to the network in New Hampshire. We have stations set up at Massabesic Center and McLane Center, plus two portable stations that we use in the north country. Follow the links below to read more about our Motus projects and how to navigate the Motus website to see what’s flying by!
Every year, NH Audubon tags Rusty Blackbirds as part of Motus. Carol Foss reports on the 2025 season:
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System continues to illuminate the travels of New Hampshire’s Rusty Blackbirds. This technology not only enables us to learn how tagged birds use the local landscape until they depart on fall migration but enables us to follow their southward migration through the network of receiving stations along the eastern seaboard.
Of 19 individuals tagged in 2025, 12 survived long enough for biologists to locate them at least twice through local tracking efforts. Eight individuals fell prey to weasels or raptors, including one that fed the Peregrine family on the cliff above the former Balsams hotel in Dixville Notch!
Local tracking with an omni-directional antenna on the roof of the truck is a continuing adventure, involving daily drives down logging roads in a wide range of conditions—if the vegetation in the middle of the road is higher than the hood it’s time to turn around! When a tag triggers the receiver, a pursuit on foot with a directional antenna brings us close to, and often within sight of the tagged bird.
After young leave the nest, Rusty Blackbird families typically move to the closest wetland, which makes locating them easy at the beginning. Eventually they make their first “big move,” requiring the team to “think like a Rusty Blackbird” and try to figure out where they might have moved to. Streams and wetlands in an ever-widening radius from their last known location provide targets for the search.
By late June families are moving widely. Some separate and move independently while others converge at particularly good foraging areas. July may find “mobs” of as many as 10-18 birds, including both adults and juveniles, at large beaver wetlands. The mobs typically disperse in August, and locating tagged birds from then until their departure in late September or early October is largely a matter of luck.
Four of New Hampshire’s tagged Rusty Blackbirds (RUBL) survived to migrate south this past fall. We hand-tracked three of these birds within our study area into the fall, with local Motus receiving stations documented their departures between September 27 and October 1. The following details their migration stories.
(The fourth disappeared after June 29 and we suspected it might have perished. Much to our surprise and delight, it triggered receiving stations in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania on October 29 and one in Delaware on November 14!)
An adult female, who nested on a narrow strip of land between a heavily travelled logging road and a beaver pond in Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy, NH (not surprisingly, the nest failed), headed south on September 29, triggering two local receiving stations on the way. The stations at Great Bay and Phillips Exeter Academy detected her on October 9, and she passed three stations north and west of Philadelphia, PA on the 27th.
A juvenile tagged in Dixville, NH on July 15 as part of a “mob,” was last detected locally on October 1 and triggered four receiving stations from Hadley, MA to the western end on Long Island, NY on October 28, traveling at an estimated speed of 35 mph. It reached the north shore of Delaware Bay on November 11 and apparently spent several days in that area. It crossed to the Delaware shore on the 23rd and continued south along the Virginia coast, with detections at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Paramore Island.
Another juvenile tagged on May 30 at its nest in Adamstown, ME started south on September 27 after 12 hand-tracked detections within the region. It triggered receiving stations in Catskill and Staatsburg, NY, on October 16; on an island in the Delaware River near Philadelphia on the 25th; and near the north end of Chesapeake Bay and the north side of the Potomac River estuary on November 7.
Receiving station set up in the north country.
For stories and photos about tracking Monarchs, visit the Butterflies conservation page.
Motus Wildlife Tracking System website
See the detections picked up by our Motus receiving stations, and discover what is flying by (to access the data you’ll need a free log in to Birds Canada:
How we Launched Our Work with Motus: Motus Project Receives Three-Year Grant Funding
Video posted January 2023, NH Fish & Game
Learn about new technology that is helping biologists understand more about Monarch butterflies, where they travel, and what can be done to help protect this declining species.
(by Pam Hunt) 2025 was the second year that NH Audubon participated in the range-wide effort to track Wood Thrushes using the Motus Wildlife Tracking Network. The project as a
(Photos and story by Lindsay Herlihy) Monarchs are one of the most recognizable butterfly species in North America due to their large size and striking coloration. They are also unique
(by Pam Hunt) 2025 is the second year of the range-wide Wood Thrush tracking project coordinated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and NH Audubon and our partners set
New Hampshire Audubon is grateful for generous grants recently awarded from the following charitable supporters: NH Audubon received grants from the Butler Foundation and the Davis Conservation Foundation to support
(by Willa Coroka) In mid-April, forty high school students from Manchester visited the Massabesic Center for a full day of activities pertaining to our conservation efforts. These same students are
(by Pam Hunt) Now that spring migration is back in full swing, it’s time to see what happened to some of the 27 Wood Thrushes we tagged in NH in
Photos, from the top: Rusty Blackbird with Motus nanotag attached, by Carol Foss; Monarch Butterfly with nanotag attached, by Grace Pitman; Motus tower in the north country, by Carol Foss.
