Meet Dr. Sidney Gauthreaux at SIB’s Evening Program on Wednesday September 27

“New Technology for Studying Bird Migration”

Satellite tracking of large migratory birds has been around for a few decades, but within the last decade new technological advancements have enabled the tracking of small migratory birds. In this presentation I will review results of migration studies using the new technology to track individual birds (miniature GIS devices, light measuring geolocators, Avian NanoTags and the MOTUS network) as well as the detection of large scale movements of migrating birds with recent technological upgrades to Doppler weather surveillance radar.

About Dr. Gauthreaux …

Dr. Gauthreaux retired from Clemson University where he was a faculty member from 1970-2006 and taught ornithology, animal behavior, and behavioral ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences. He still maintains a research presence at Clemson. He was a part-time employee of GeoMarine, Inc. (Plano, Texas) as Senior Scientist in the area of Remote Sensing and Technology from 2006-2012, and currently works as an independent consultant. He is also a part-time faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where he works on the assessment of avian radars with Dr. Edwin E. Herricks’s group.

Research emphasis on bird migration throughout the United States and particularly across the Gulf of Mexico using combinations of radar and direct visual techniques to study the characteristics and geographical patterns. Research in applied ornithology includes

1) studies to reduce instances of aircraft colliding with migrating birds
2) assessing the risks of migrating birds colliding with man-made structures such as transmission lines, towers, and wind turbines
3) the attraction of migrating birds at night to different types of lighting on towers and other structures (e.g., tall buildings and offshore platforms).

Below is a YouTube production with Dr. Gauthreaux speaking about our neighboring ACE Basin.

Author: sibirders

SEABROOK ISLAND BIRDERS / “watching, learning, protecting” Seabrook Island Birders (SIB) are residents, renters and guests of Seabrook Island, SC who have an interest in learning, protecting and providing for the well-being of the incredible variety of birds that inhabit Seabrook Island throughout the year. View all posts by sibirders