Ann Tanner is working on 4 hours of sleep and exhibiting no indicators of it. On a moist June morning, she greets me with enthusiasm and a surprisingly sturdy handshake as I be a part of a bunch of volunteers, gathered in a parking zone of Wyandotte County Lake Park in Kansas Metropolis, Kansas. Down the hill, a Prothonotary Warbler is busy defending his nesting territory, his candy track punctuating the refrain of close by birds.
Because the president of Burroughs Audubon Society and a Johnson County K-State Extension Master Naturalist, Tanner has recruited the chicken lovers and scientists right here as a part of a four-year quest to find the migration route of Prothonotary Warblers in Kansas Metropolis. Final 12 months, this staff captured the warbler singing beneath us, named him “Hydrogen,” and mounted a geolocator to his again. Within the 12 months since, Hydrogen flew to South America and again. Solely he is aware of the place precisely. What he doesn’t know is that the group milling across the parking zone is plotting to seize him in the present day, and they won’t surrender till they’ve retrieved the dear information that he’s carrying on his little again.
The 15 members of in the present day’s outing embrace Burroughs Audubon Society members and Johnson County Grasp Naturalists, retirees and younger professionals, ornithologists and novice birders. All of them have performed a task main as much as this morning. As soon as the required tools—mist nets, a home made Prothonotary Warbler decoy, and loudspeaker—is in place, the group steps about 30 toes away and Gabe McClain, a grasp’s pupil at Pittsburg State College in Kansas, begins enjoying Prothonotary Warbler songs on the speaker.
It doesn’t take lengthy for Hydrogen to react. “I see him!” Tanner calls out after a pair minutes. A yellow speck begins chirping aggressively on the decoy from a department above the online. He makes a swipe at his perceived intruder, flies into the online—and bounces out.
McClain continues to play the speaker. One other jiffy go by. He switches the recording to a unique name, after which a vivid flash of yellow flies into the online once more. The group jumps with pleasure and waits eagerly whereas McClain extracts the chicken. He seems up, offers the group a tragic smile, and shakes his head. It’s not Hydrogen; it’s his mate.
However Hydrogen quickly reappears. A tense jiffy go. Somebody calls out, “Acquired the male!” McClain goes over to extract Hydrogen and says, to our aid, “Yep, he’s bought his geolocator on.” McClain holds the good yellow chicken with a piercing black eye as much as his fan membership. Pointing to a small, rice-sized bulb on the chicken’s rump, McClain says, “This little factor is what we’ve been after the entire time.” Working shortly to get well the dear information, a volunteer cuts the filament securing the geolocator to Hydrogen’s again, and shortly McClain is holding the tiny tracker that holds the secrets and techniques of his migration.
Birders in the USA typically affiliate Prothonotary Warblers with the darkish swamps of the South. Kansas Metropolis roughly marks the westernmost fringe of their vary, however which may be altering. For at the least the final 4 a long time, Prothonotary Warblers have been shifting their vary northwest. Nobody is certain why: It might be that hurricanes, drought, and wetland destruction are displacing them within the South—or it is likely to be one thing else. The staff assembled in Kansas Metropolis is a part of a global effort to search out out.
Erik Johnson, assistant professor of wildlife administration at Louisiana State College and former director of conservation science for Audubon Delta, coordinates the Prothonotary Warbler Working Group, a consortium of federal and state businesses, NGOs, and universities that examine the chicken. They collaborate on large-scale research to analysis elementary questions concerning the species, like why the inhabitants is declining in some areas and rising in others, how local weather change is affecting their reproductive success, and whether their migratory flights intersect with offshore wind energy projects.
At present, there are extra questions than solutions, particularly across the western inhabitants. Though the western inhabitants is rising, scientists know that the species as an entire is declining, however they don’t know what’s driving both pattern, Johnson says. Mapping the migration of the western inhabitants might assist clarify its improve. Maybe these birds are migrating to a unique nonbreeding habitat, taking a much less harmful path to get there, or migrating when situations are extra favorable. “We don’t know that till we begin exploring it,” Johnson says.
A chance got here in 2023, when Johnson obtained a notably enthusiastic e-mail from a birder in Kansas Metropolis. It was Tanner. She wished to know the way Burroughs Audubon Society and the Johnson County Grasp Naturalist Program might take part within the working group’s migration examine. Tanner wasn’t an expert ornithologist like most of Johnson’s collaborators, however he didn’t have any migration information from Prothonotary Warblers breeding in Kansas. “And so I used to be like, ‘Oh, that is attention-grabbing. Yeah, let’s see the place this goes,’” he says.
Jack Corrigan was the primary Missouri Grasp Naturalist to volunteer with the Kansas Metropolis challenge and is now the Missouri lead. To raised perceive the Kansas Metropolis Prothonotaries, I be a part of him for one in all his nest field monitoring routes at Platte Falls Conservation Space, simply exterior Kansas Metropolis. We splash via a foot of water into the darkish, sweet-smelling forest. It seems like a rainforest, and that’s in all probability why the swamp-loving warblers have chosen to nest right here. I, too, would have been charmed, if it weren’t for the sunshine rain of mosquitoes pelting my face and neck. Corrigan’s unfazed by the insect onslaught, however he nonetheless works shortly.
Once we arrive on the first field, he gently knocks on it and a yellow blur shoots out. A feminine Prothonotary Warbler lands on a shrub close by and begins calling in alarm. Corrigan opens the aspect of the field, revealing 5 grape-size white and brown eggs inside a nest of advantageous twigs and moss. He gently slides his cellphone over the nest, takes a photograph, closes the field, and leaves.
Regardless of the protocol requiring nest checks solely as soon as every week, Corrigan repeats this course of each three days. He says the chicks develop shortly and he might miss essential developments if he got here much less typically, however I believe that he’s at the least partly pushed by his private want to see the birds and ensure they’re okay. He worries about chicks getting sick or eaten by predators, he says.
His fears are cheap. In line with Johnson, solely about 40 % of Prothonotary Warbler nests in pure cavities achieve fledging at the least one chicken, primarily attributable to predation and Brown-headed Cowbird nest parasitism. Due to nest bins that exclude cowbirds, predator guards, and a devoted staff of volunteers who monitor them, the Kansas Metropolis nest bins have had a whopping 80 % fledging price.
“You’re appearing regionally, however you’re affecting globally.
Whereas it might sound like a hobbyist’s craft challenge, constructing and putting in nest bins is a critical conservation tactic, says Johnson. “Predator-guarded bins are very nicely documented to virtually double the reproductive success,” he says. They’re so efficient that they allow Prothonotary Warblers to breed in territories the place they in any other case wouldn’t. “So that you’re actually placing extra infants into the world,” he says.
For Corrigan, the examine is a chance to assist particular person Prothonotary Warblers and the species as an entire. “You’re appearing regionally, however you’re affecting globally,” he tells me, after checking three extra equally moist and buggy bins. At residence, he’ll add his information to the challenge’s database, which sends the information to NestWatch, a program run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that compiles nesting information and makes them obtainable to scientists, together with the Prothonotary Warbler Working Group. With these information, scientists will be capable of find out how Prothonotary Warblers’ reproductive success is altering over time, the way it varies by geography, and the way migration and nonbreeding habitat situations have an effect on it.
It’s one factor to know that you just’re efficiently hatching and fledging new birds, however a significant query remained for Tanner: The place the heck had been they occurring their southbound migrations? Tanner had heard that scientists within the Prothonotary Warbler Working Group had been utilizing geolocators to reply this query in different states and he or she wished the Kansas Metropolis crew to be part of it. With steerage from Johnson, Burroughs Audubon Society bought 4 geolocators for $250 every in 2024 and recruited Andrew George and Alice Boyle professors at Pittsburg State and Kansas State universities, respectively, to deploy them.
Kansas Metropolis was a super addition to the working group, not solely as a result of the birds there have been unstudied, but in addition due to the native military of nest field volunteers. Every geolocator is effective, so scientists solely need to deploy them on birds that they’ve a very good likelihood of recapturing. Which means the birds must survive a 12 months, return to the identical place, and be relocated. By putting in predator-guarded nest bins and finding nests, volunteers present the places the place the scientists can reliably seize them. And by monitoring the bins carefully and eradicating threats, the volunteers improve the birds’ probabilities of surviving. George says he wouldn’t be capable of put geolocators on the birds with out the volunteers’ efforts.
In 2024, they put the geolocators on 4 Prothonotary Warblers nesting of their bins. Scientists fasten geolocators to Prothonotaries with stretchable twine harnesses that don’t impede their motion. The Prothonotary Warbler Working Group discovered that harnessed geolocators weighing as much as 4 % of a Prothonotary’s weight had no detectable results on their return charges. Regardless of these precautions, not one of the 4 tagged warblers had been relocated in 2025. Migration is a dangerous journey, says Johnson, and solely about 40 % of Prothonotary Warblers are thought to outlive the spherical journey. Undaunted, George and McClain positioned new geolocators offered by the Nationwide Audubon Society on one other six Prothonotary Warblers in 2025, together with Hydrogen. A 12 months later, on Might 27, 2026, one of many volunteers noticed Hydrogen and his geolocator at Wyandotte County Lake.
A number of days after Hydrogen was recaptured and his geolocator retrieved, George downloaded the geolocator information, which consisted of greater than 100,000 pairs of photo voltaic radiation and barometric strain values. The method of changing these to geocoordinates is “extremely sophisticated,” he tells me. Late one night time, after many hours of writing code, he produced the primary migration map of a Prothonotary Warbler from Kansas.
On October 24, 2025, Hydrogen arrived within the Division of Bolivar in northern Colombia, 47 days and roughly 2,800 miles after leaving Wyandotte County Lake. For the following 168 days, Hydrogen probably lived within the Ciénaga Grande de Magangué, a part of the Magdalena River Valley. The ciénaga is an space of huge flooded forests that’s wealthy in wetland forest birds however being quickly cleared for agriculture. On April 9, 2026, the urge emigrate as soon as once more compelled him, and he largely retraced his path north, arriving at Wyandotte County Lake on Might 3, 2026. On his northern journey, he flew 3,000 miles in simply 24 days.
In 12 months, Hydrogen used habitat in 5 U.S. states, two Mexican states, two Honduran departments, two Nicaraguan departments, one Panamanian province, and one Colombian division.
Hydrogen’s migration reveals the complexity of full life-cycle conservation. In 12 months, Hydrogen used habitat in 5 U.S. states, two Mexican states, two Honduran departments, two Nicaraguan departments, one Panamanian province, and one Colombian division. Prothonotary Warblers rely on folks in all of them working collectively to preserve their habitat.
Kim Model, Audubon’s managing director of group constructing, sees a task for Audubon’s group chapters in that. Final December, Audubon invited Burroughs to take part in a pilot program for migratory chicken conservation. Audubon paired Burroughs with the Ciénaga de Mallorquín Ecopark in Barranquílla, Colombia, situated in prime Prothonotary Warbler nonbreeding habitat. Via the ecopark, Barranquilla is advancing a mannequin of ecotourism that integrates conservation, tradition, and financial growth. They do that by reinvesting funds in the local people, restoring mangroves, and involving native folks within the creation of their applications.
“Past its conservation worth, the ecopark can also be serving to enhance high quality of life in Barranquilla by bringing folks nearer to nature and strengthening the town’s id as a spot that values and protects birds,” says Camilo Cardozo, Colombia nation director for Audubon. The ecopark provides an essential instance of fairness in city conservation by partaking susceptible communities, college college students, and residents from throughout the town in a public house devoted to nature and chicken conservation, he provides.
The partnership is presently in its early stage, however Tanner says she hopes Burroughs can work with the ecopark to create extra consciousness for Prothonotary Warblers in Barranquilla and discover future collaborative monitoring alternatives.
“I believe tasks like this give folks hope,” says Model. “And hope is what fuels motion.”
After releasing Hydrogen, the staff packs up the online and caravans to a different a part of the lake to recapture one different Prothonotary Warbler who returned with a geolocator, named “The Dude.” Though they have already got Hydrogen’s geolocator, Hydrogen is only one chicken amongst many. Accumulating extra migration information is significant for constructing an correct understanding of the inhabitants’s migration.
This is able to be The Dude’s third time being caught: He was caught two years in the past as a younger chicken however was too small to hold a geolocator, then caught once more final 12 months when he was larger and bought his geolocator backpack. Tricking him a 3rd time might be fairly difficult. The banders arrange two nets and a decoy. After a number of minutes, The Dude seems carrying a inexperienced caterpillar, however he appears to have discovered from his previous errors. For almost an hour, The Dude flutters above and across the nets however stays nicely away from them. “Come on, simply go in,” says Sara Blunk, a Burroughs board member.
Finally, McClain and George run out of tips and determine it greatest to return again later. “I believe for my very own sanity it might be good for me to catch one other chicken,” says McClain. We drive to some different nest bins, tag a number of extra birds—together with one who we study is one in all The Dude’s chicks from final 12 months—and return to The Dude’s nest one hour later. The banders arrange all three of their nets and two decoys. They return to our remark spot sweating, panting, and with a barely delirious look of their eyes.
It’s now 4:15 p.m. We’ve been on the park since 9:00 a.m. It’s sizzling and humid and each inch of my pores and skin is roofed in a skinny layer of sweat. My again hurts from standing for hours, however Tanner tells me that the grass in all probability has biting mites, so I can’t sit. (It seems the mites bought me anyhow). A number of the volunteers have gone residence, however 5 are nonetheless right here. I ask them why.
Megan Summers, who took break day from work to be right here, says it’s the enjoyment of seeing different folks expertise one thing they’ve invested a lot in. Heather Cwach, a Grasp Naturalist who helped begin the nest field program, says she desires to see the validation of their efforts. Tanner sums it up: “That chicken carries our coronary heart in that GPS.”
“That chicken carries our coronary heart in that GPS.”
So we wait for an additional lengthy, sweaty hour as George and McClain strive each trick they’ll consider. Lastly, they disappear behind bushes to examine a web for the hundredth time and go quiet. One of many volunteers goes to look and returns pumping her fist. There’s a Prothonotary Warbler within the web! George and McClain have began eradicating the chicken, however we haven’t heard any shouts of pleasure. The volunteers collect subsequent to the online to anxiously watch. McClain confirms that the chicken is The Dude, however McClain doesn’t look completely happy. Lastly, he offers us the dangerous information: The geolocator is gone.
Tanner’s smile melts and her eyes go vast. She stands frozen together with her mouth agape for a number of seconds, after which she offers a resigned smile. What else can she do? McClain carries The Dude again to the banding station, him with profound disappointment, as if he’s been tricked. Understanding full nicely that it will likely be even tougher to seize him a fourth time, the group collectively decides to place one other geolocator on The Dude. They take his measurements and ship him again to his chicks.
Tanner has had a few years to brace herself for disappointments like this. “Attempting to catch this chicken will not be for the faint of coronary heart, as a result of you understand you’re going to fail greater than you’re going to succeed,” she tells me. She is aware of how unlikely it’s for a 14-gram chicken to fly to Colombia and again. Doing this work requires an incredible quantity of hope, she says, and recapturing Hydrogen’s geolocator is greater than she might have hoped for.
“It’s a miracle,” she says, “And I can’t wait to see what his information present.”
With that sense of marvel, this staff of chicken lovers has come thus far, and their work is simply simply starting. All through the summer season, George and McClain deployed 36 geolocators on Prothonotary Warblers in jap Kansas. There could also be many extra miracles to return.
