Automated Radio Telemetry on the Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus) in Great Britain

Manual radio telemetry in the field is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and often reaches its limits when dealing with rapid movement patterns. A research project at the University of Liverpool, led by Dr. Oliver Padget, is using our automated radio-tracking system to study the foraging and breeding behavior of the European nightjar in a heathland landscape in Dorset (United Kingdom).

The goal is to document and analyze the birds’ movement patterns and social interactions as comprehensively as possible. At the same time, we are collaborating on the project with Lotek, one of the world’s leading companies in the field of wildlife tracking, to jointly develop new transmitters for the trackIT system.

How the trackIT system helps answer researchers’ questions

To study complex behaviors such as social interactions, telemetry data with high temporal resolution and the greatest possible spatial precision is required.

• Our vhf:tracker-directional is currently the only system available worldwide that provides this data in real time with relatively little installation effort.
• The system continuously records position data, enabling automated tracking of tagged individuals. This significantly reduces the effort required for manual cross-bearing measurements, and movement data is immediately available for analysis.
• Practical experience from the project: By the midpoint of the field season, 15 birds were already active in the system. According to the project team, the continuous availability of location data facilitates both the localization of nests and the targeted recapture of tagged individuals.
• Analysis of social interactions: The high temporal and spatial resolution enables the study of interactions between individuals, which often cannot be fully captured using conventional manual telemetry.