How to Track Maine’s Tagged Herons Online

Back to Tracking Project – Intro

Track Them Online:

Here are some instructions for tracking Maine’s tagged great blue herons in Movebank:

  1. Go to website, www.movebank.org.
  2. Click on the Data menu at the top and choose Map from the drop-down menu.
  3. Type Brzorad in the search menu. You should see Egrets & Herons with a + next to it.
  4. Click on the +. Now you’ll see a list of all the tagged birds.
  5. Scroll down to find one of the ten herons that were tagged in Maine: Cornelia, Nokomis, Mellow, Sedgey, Snark, Snipe, Warrior, Easton’s Baby Blue, Harper, Ragged Richard, and Mariner.
  6. Click the box next to any of the bird’s names and it will show the points on the map. If you click on the name of the bird, it will highlight it and show the bird’s track on the map. You should then be able to zoom in close and see where it has been.

Download the Data For Further Exploration:

You can also download a portion of the data and bring it into Google Earth to see date and time stamp for each location. Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Click on the “i” for any of the birds, and click on “Download search result.”
  2. Choose “Filter by date,” and either select interval or put in a date range.
  3. Be sure to select “GoogleEarth (Tracks), Add UTM coordinates, and Add study local time. Then select Download.
  4. Once the file downloads, you should be able to open it right in GoogleEarth and click on each individual point to see what day and time it was at that spot.

Track Them With Your Smartphone:

Maine’s tagged great blue herons can now be easily tracked with your smartphone by using the Animal Tracker App!

Happy Heron Tracking!