It’s very exciting to report that Lyanne Brouwer and her team have just tagged the first southern black-throated finch up in Townsville. This endangered bird has declined across over 90% of its range in the past half century and there are only two areas in which they can be regularly found. One of these is the study site on the outskirts of Townsville.

To better manage and preserve these beautiful birds we do need to understand their habitat requirements, behaviour and movement ecology. In our project we are aiming to track birds intensively as they move around to gain important insights into these areas.

A number of birds will be fitted with these very small and lightweight radio tags. The signals will be picked up by a number of radio nodes, which will allow us to understand how much they are moving on a daily level and which areas of the local habitat they are utilising most.

The field team, led by Prof. Lyanne Brouwer, with Tis Voorstman and Parvaiz Yousef.