By Erica Geldart, Motus Outreach and Analytics Coordinator and Kianna Leung, Motus Technician
Spring is in the air – and so are the birds. Hundreds of migratory species are currently on the move, making their way back to breeding grounds across Canada. Thanks to the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (Motus), we’re uncovering the mysteries and importance of these migrations like never before, and putting the results at your fingertips.
Motus was launched in 2014 by Birds Canada, Western University, Acadia University, University of Guelph, and other collaborating researchers and organizations with support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (innovation.ca). Motus has grown rapidly with the tremendous support of thousands of collaborators around the world. Motus, meaning “movement” in Latin, is an international research community working together to study the movement and behaviour of birds, bats, and insects with incredible accuracy over vast distances.
Motus is a powerful conservation tool, transforming our understanding of animal movements to protect biodiversity.
How does Motus work?
Motus puts a modern twist on traditional radio telemetry methods by shrinking, advancing, and automating the technology. At its core, Motus is made up of three key components – receiver stations, radio tags, and a centralized database and web platform. Motus stations are set up by collaborators in strategic locations across the landscape to track wildlife behaviour and movements. These stations consist of a receiver connected to one or more antennas that detect signals transmitted from nearby Motus tags. Since these stations are fully automated, they run continuously, collecting valuable data around the clock as animals fly by. Each station can detect any animal carrying a Motus tag from anywhere in the hemisphere, creating a widespread and cooperative monitoring network.
Motus tags are tiny radio transmitters that are attached to animals like miniaturized backpacks as part of individual research and conservation projects. The advantages of Motus tags are their lightweight and small size, with some weighing as little as 0.2 g. This allows researchers to track species that are often too small to use other forms of tracking technologies safely, like GPS or satellite transmitters. Each tag emits a unique radio signal that Motus stations can detect from up to 10 to 15 kilometres away. When an animal carrying a Motus tag passes near a station, the detection is recorded, capturing precise location and time data. This information is then sent from the receiver to a central database maintained by Birds Canada, where it is stored, analyzed, and shared with researchers, the broader Motus community, and the public. Learn more about how Motus works at motus.org/resources/how-motus-works.
Motus station at McIntyre Ranch, Alberta. Photo: Ralph Thrall III
Red Knot with a Motus tag. Photo: Julian Garcia Walther
Motus empowers research, protects biodiversity, and inspires learning
In just over a decade, the Motus network has grown to over 2,150 active stations operating in 34 countries. Each region is supported by a dedicated community of local collaborators who independently operate and maintain their part of the network. By 2025, over 55,000 animals from more than 400 species have been tracked using Motus, including over 150 species of conservation concern. This milestone highlights the power of international collaboration and the value of open science.
Number of Motus collaborators over time
Motus breaks down barriers to information and helps accelerate progress in wildlife research and conservation. All Motus data is visible to the public, and more than 80% of Motus projects share their data freely, making it available to other researchers, educators or conservationists. Visit motus.org/dashboard to explore Motus data.
While Motus is best known for its role in tracking animal movement, particularly migration, its scope and impact extend well beyond migratory studies. Motus also enables the tracking of local, non-migratory movements throughout breeding and wintering seasons, allowing researchers to study behaviour and habitat use year-round. By monitoring how populations shift across seasons, researchers can uncover patterns in reproductive success, survival, and regional connectivity. This information helps identify critical habitats and informs targeted conservation efforts. Additionally, Motus supports studies on the impacts of human activity, land use, and climate change on wildlife and ecosystems. With over 250 published studies using Motus data, researchers and conservationists are gaining important insight into animal behaviour and movement, the pressures they face, and the habitats they rely on throughout their life cycles.
Check out motus.org/resources/applications to discover more about how Motus advances research on and conservation for birds.
Distribution of Motus stations (blue dots) in 2014 and 2025.
Explore our fresh new look for Spring
To help make Motus data more accessible and clearly communicate our impacts, we completed a Motus makeover!
Just in time for spring migration, we are thrilled to announce the launch of a new Motus web platform. Whether you’re a researcher, volunteer, educator, conservationist, or simply curious about wildlife movement, the new Motus web platform is designed to better serve you—and to grow with the Motus community.
As the central hub for those working on Motus projects, the new platform offers valuable resources and multiple ways to connect with collaborators, share information, and build new partnerships.
Motus data is not only available but also accessible through interactive tools to explore wildlife movements. Users can track the journeys of Motus-tagged animals and zoom in on specific countries, regions, or individual Motus stations. These interactive tools also create exciting opportunities for public engagement, inspiring greater awareness, appreciation, and participation in wildlife conservation.
The new web platform makes it easier than ever to explore how Motus is transforming how we study and protect birds. Visit motus.org to learn more and support our conservation efforts.
Project Spotlight: A big team effort to help an iconic songbird
Last year, scientists and bird-conservation groups from across North, Central, and South America teamed up to launch the largest Motus tracking project to date. Their goal? To learn more about and protect the Wood Thrush—a forest songbird whose numbers are declining across much of its range.
Wood Thrush after receiving a Motus tag. Photo: Sarah Kendrick
Co-led by U.S. Fish and Wildlife and SELVA, a Colombian bird-conservation organization, the effort brought together over 60 collaborators, including Birds Canada. With Wood Thrush populations in decline, scientists hope to learn how their survival may vary across their range, when and where they travel, how different parts of their journey are connected, and what challenges they face along the way. Gathering this information helps shed light on what Wood Thrushes need to thrive and how we can protect the places they depend on, all year long.
Together, collaborators put out nearly 600 tags across 26 U.S. states and Ontario—where the species breeds—and another 100 tags spread across key areas where Wood Thrushes spend the winter, including Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. And the work is not done yet – more tagging is planned for the 2025 breeding season.
Tracks of all Wood Thrush tagged with Motus. Each colour represents a different project. Green circles represent stations that received detections by the species, and grey circles represent all other stations. Data available at motus.org/dashboard
Join the movement
Birds Canada and University partners across Canada are embarking on a major expansion of Motus infrastructure across Canada and elsewhere in the Americas with support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This collaborative initiative will help fill critical infrastructure gaps in the existing network and create new opportunities to join the Motus community.
Are you, or local organization’s you belong to, interested in hosting or sponsoring a station and becoming part of the Motus community? Visit motus.org/get-involved to explore how you can get involved or reach out to the Birds Canada Motus team here: https://motus.org/contact-us/.
