Gouldian Finch Recovery Project
Radio Tracking
An important tool in gaining a better understanding of the gouldian's ecology has been the use of radio telemetry. Because of this innovation we have been able to monitor the daily home ranges of individual gouldians in country that was totally inaccessible to vehicles and virtually impossible to walk through.
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During the 1999 - 2000 Wet season, fieldwork focused on tracking the daily movements of gouldians and learning about what species of grass were used as food sources. This was a resounding success through the aid of transmitters. Very small transmitters (0.62g) were attached to several birds using a harness made from surgical suture.
This method of attachment is ideal for small birds because it allows the transmitter to be positioned on the back of the bird close to the centre of gravity (causing minimal disturbance to flight capability). The suture material also disintegrates within a short period causing the transmitter to drop off if the bird has not already been recaptured.
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Red male gouldian with a transmitter attached to his back |
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After the transmitter was attached daily monitoring took place at half hourly intervals from 5:00 am until 7:00 pm (unless lightening from wet season storms forces us to depart earlier).
This provided us with about 20 locations for each bird for each day of recording. These were very long, hot days, but we had friends to keep our minds on the job!
The monitoring took place at three radio-tower stations, simultaneously. This allowed us to use a triangulation method to later map exact locations of focal birds. The towers were 12m in height with twin five element Yagi antennas mounted at the top.
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As can be seen by the previous photographs, a great deal of effort was required while setting-up each tower. Thanks to many volunteers we have had only one mishap after moving towers more than 20 times during the field season.
After several days of tracking we were able to produce maps with the half hourly locations of each bird. These locations provided us with feeding sites that we were able to visit later and protect for future generations of gouldians.
We were also able to measure the distances that individual gouldians moved while searching for food, which will enable us to plan management strategies for the protection of entire populations.
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