Black-tailed godwits en route to Africa with hypermodern satellite transmitters

Since last week, 15 black-tailed godwits in Fryslan (in the north of the Netherlands) have been flying around with tiny transmitters in their abdominal cavities. The transmitters were inserted during a minor operation by the American vet Daniel Mulcahy and his Dutch colleague David Tijssen. With the help of the transmitters, researchers will be able to track the birds for about a year in their breeding grounds in Fryslan as well as during their migration from and to Southern Europe and Africa. 'We hope that this unique project will tell us more about the exact migration route of this threatened wader,' says research leader Professor Theunis Piersma of the University of Groningen...

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