I track bird movement to enhance conservation efforts

“The bird in my hand is a yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens). This species breeds in North America — occurring in southern British Columbia and southwestern Ontario in Canada and in much of the United States — and then migrates to Mexico and Central America during the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn months. The chat is a declining species in North America, in part because it relies on habitat adjacent to bodies of water such as rivers and streams, much of which has been destroyed. In 2001, one population in the Okanagan valley in Canada had just 25 breeding pairs remaining. But conservation actions, including monitoring these birds and restoring their habitats, have helped their populations to recover. There are now more than 250 breeding pairs in the area.

This photo was taken in February 2024 in Asunción Atoyaquillo, near Tlaxiaco, Mexico. We know that population declines in North America can be linked not only to what happens in Canada and the United States, but also to what happens during migration or at the wintering grounds. Two years ago, I started a project with Scott Wilson, my colleague at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Delta, British Columbia, and several collaborators in Mexico, to study these birds during the winter to better understand the threats that they face.

Here, Sergio Gómez-Villaverde (left) and Adrián Cabrera-Valenzuela (right) are helping me to tag a chat with a radio transmitter so that we can track its movement. We tagged 30 chats this year. Sergio leads a bird-conservation organization in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Adrián is a field biologist at the Bird Observatory of Tlaxiaco.

One thing I love about this photo is that it shows that I don’t work alone. Sergio is holding a radio transmitter in a pair of tweezers, while Adrián is recording data. Could I do this work by myself? Probably, but it’s a lot easier when you have partners.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.