It is important that people do not try to find these birds this season as it might cause them to abandon the nest. If you are interested in trying to see cuckoos here, contact us through our contact form.
In 2025, we have 4 tagged cuckoos. These birds were captured early in the season in giant mist nets as they flew through the tall cottonwoods and willows. Then they were tagged with a radio tag and given colored leg bands to be able to identify them through binoculars. The tag allows us to estimate the location of the birds in the habitat so we can understand the movement and activity of the birds as they go about their daily activities.
We give the birds nicknames to help field observers talk to each other about individual birds so that they can record data on location, and behavior based on visual and auditory detections. This year’s birds are nicknamed using part of the genus of known food items. In the image below, White is referred to as Hyla, Green is Papilio, Red is Schisto, and Purple is Neo. Observer data is used to match up with data from tag detection “nodes” described below.
Estimated locations of four cuckoos from July 7 to August 7, 2025. Black dots represent ground detectors or nodes that detect tags. Colored dots represent location estimates from one time interval. Colored outlines represent an estimate of home range (based on 80% kernel density estimate) for each tagged bird.
Using the signal strength recorded at adjacent nodes and a time stamp, a location estimate can be generated for a given time. The tags generate very large numbers of location estimates, as you can see (30 day period pictured). These locations can be used to estimate the home range used by individual birds to find food. Home ranges change as the birds move through different phases of their breeding cycle: from nest building, to incubating eggs, to feeding chicks, to feeding fledglings. We can look at these data in almost real time to understand which birds are being observed in the field. These data can also be used to find nests. We have successfully placed an additional node below the nest and have been able to use the signal strength patterns to understand what the birds are doing, for how much time in their day. The signal strength pattern can also tell us what phase of breeding they are in and when the transitions between phases happens.
To see how we have used signal strength data to estimate activity and breeding cycle phase, click on or download one of our recent posters: A novel way to monitor nests using Motus tagged birds and a CTT node
We have a video of location-tracking over time and of the giant mist nets on our Youtube channel. (Murrelet Halterman and others developed the canopy netting methods.)
