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Hams, monitoring enthusiasts invited to aid wildlife researchers
(Jul 25, 2006)
-- Wildlife researchers areasking radio amateurs and VHF monitoring enthusiasts to help listen for radio tag signals from migrating birds. A non-profit organization in New Mexico wants to find the wintering grounds of the burrowing owl, which summers in the grasslands of Kirtland Air Force Base. "Twenty-eight of the birds have been fitted with pulsing radio-tags near 172 MHz, and attempts will be made to track them by aircraft to see if they go east toward Texas, west to California, or south to Mexico," says ARRL Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) Coordinator Joe Moell, K0OV. "It's likely that aircraft will lose contact with most of the owls, so volunteers throughout southwestern states and northern Mexico are being asked to listen for them." Moell said July 25 that the birds "will start moving any day now." Meanwhile, researchers at two Toronto universities are radiotagging 20 young purple martins at a breeding colony in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. "These beautiful birds are expected to start flying south in mid-August, probably to winter grounds in South America," Moell says. "Hams in southern states from Texas through Florida are asked to be listening and possibly detect the flyovers." He says those living in the migration zones and can receive 172 MHz signals can help. "If you have radio-direction finding equipment for VHF, so much the better," he adds. Moell's "Homing In" Web site has much more information on these projects. [Joe Moell, K0OV,Photo] |
