EBBA's monthly webinar series continues on August 19th with a presentation by Dr. Emma Rhodes, Director of Conservation and Scientific Research for the Banding Coalition of the Americas (BCA).

Due to attachment weight limitations and the 3% body mass-to-weight attachment rule, hummingbirds under 5g have remained a major methodological barrier in movement ecology. As part of a collaboration between the Banding Coalition of the Americas (BCA) and Cellular Tracking Technologies (CTT), an ultra-light solar-powered transmitter (CTT's BlūMorpho 0.058-0.060g) was designed and field tested to enable continuous, near real-time tracking using a broad, crowdsourced network.

The system was validated on two North American hummingbird species during spring migration, demonstrating reliable detection, multi-week retention, and broad spatial coverage (United States, Mexico and Canada). Results highlight the ability to track the smallest of species across the full migratory range with fine-scale spatial and high temporal resolution using the BlūMorpho transmitter. This led to an approved collaborative project (HumTrack) by the USGS' Bird Banding Lab to work with banders throughout the Americas to study Rufous and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

All webinars will be recorded, but will only be available to EBBA members once added to our website.