Last week the Urban Bird Project hosted Dr. Rafael Rueda-Hernández for a lecture and bioacoustic tech workshop at UTSA’s Main Campus. During our course on community-engaged research, Dr. Rueda-Hernández discussed the bioacoustic monitoring of nocturnal migratory birds in Veracruz, México. Most of what we know about bird migration actually comes from observations done during the day, but over 70% of migratory birds migrate at night. During his talk, Rafa discussed preliminary results from his deployment of 15 bioacoustic recorders in México. After validating the model in a variety of ways, these bioacoustic recorders were telling him which (species), where (location), when (timing), and how many (abundance) nocturnal migratory birds were flying over the recorders. The community aspect of Rafa’s project is demonstrated by the partners he engages to host these bioacoustic recorders on their property. With these devices, landowners are able to know which migratory birds are flying over, or stopping over, their property, thereby giving landowners a way to monitor the biodiversity of their lands.
During Rafa’s visit, UBP successfully deployed 6 of these bioacoustic monitors, including two on UTSA’s campus, one near St. Hedwig (east), one in Bandera (west), one in midtown SA, and even one in Xilitla, México, in the Huasteca region. Over the next month, UBP hopes to deploy another 4 in the South Texas region. The implications of this bioacoustic tech and Rafa’s network of monitors is that we will have some of the largest and most accurate data sets of nocturnal migratory birds along the Central Flyway ever created. Indeed, this project will help us finally understand the mystery of the missing migratory birds and ultimately it will provide us with precise timing of the individual species of migratory birds flying over urban spaces like San Antonio.
To analyze this data, Rafa uses an open-source deep learning model called Nighthawk, which detects and identifies the vocalizations of nocturnally migrating birds. Nighthawk was developed by Benjamin M. Van Doren from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and he’s been working with Dr. Rueda-Hernandez to help further validate and refine the model for each specific location. For more information, check out the Van Doren Lab of Migration Biology as well as the open access papers below. Thanks to Dr. Rueda-Hernández and Nighthawk for their work and stay tuned for more on how these collaborations are helping us find and save migratory birds.
“Nighthawk: Acoustic monitoring of nocturnal bird migration in the Americas”: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14272
“Automated acoustic monitoring captures timing and intensity of bird migration”: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14342
