Academics to observe birds in Kızılırmak

SAMSUN - Anadolu Agency

With a one-gram tool on the birds’ necks, academics will observe their annual migration cycles and find out where they spend their winter and summer.

With a joint project, the biology departments of Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMU) in the Black Sea province of Samsun and Sweden’s Lund University will observe a migratory bird type, the great reed warbler. By placing a one-gram tool on the birds’ neck, the academics will observe their annual migration cycles, and find out where they spend their winter and summer months.

Turkey executive of the project, OMU member Arzu Gürsoy, said that the great reed warbler followed a migration path in Turkey, and works on migration had great importance in the country. She said that they had chosen the great reed warbler since they were loyal to their migratory areas and would most probably come to the same place next year.

“The work, which is financed by Swedish Lund University, will last two years. It is a two-staged project. In the first stage, we have attached a tool to 15 birds in the Kızılırmak Delta to determine their location. In the second stage, these birds will be caught and we will observe the tools, which records the birds’ actions every 10 seconds. Since it is a light tool, the tool never affects their movement,” Gürsoy said.

Gürsoy added that as well as its scientific contributions, the project would also shed light on the migration strategy of the great reed warbler.