AUDUBON SOCIETY OF KALAMAZOO — Michigan Motus Array: Exciting Detections in Michigan

In 2017, Rich and Brenda Keith attended the annual meeting of Eastern Bird Banders in West Virginia. Stu MacKenzie from Bird Studies Canada spoke on the Motus Project that was launched in 2014. In Stu’s presentation he showed slides of Gray-cheeked Thrush banded in traditional and shade grown coffee plantations being detected at Motus stations going north, until they reached Michigan. Stu’s observation “we need Motus stations in Michigan” was taken as a command by Rich. The Michigan Motus Array presently has 20 stations with 8 more funded and going up in 2025 plus more in the works. Rich and Brenda will speak to their experiences and findings since joining the Motus Project.

Longtime Audubon Society of Kalamazoo members Rich and Brenda Keith began working with the research program at the Kalamazoo Nature Center (KNC) as volunteers in the mid-1980s. Both were eventually hired by the KNC in the bird banding program. That program expanded to include the Keiths’ 43-acre property near Vicksburg, Michigan, now known as the Pitsfield Banding Station. That site as well as the KNC and Fort Custer Training Center are part of the Kalamazoo Valley Bird Observatory under Rich’s direction. In addition to banding birds, Rich and Brenda have also contributed to a variety of bird-related research projects, the Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas, winter feeder surveys, and Christmas Bird Counts. Both are certified hummingbird banders, a designation achieved by very few in Michigan. In 2018, they began work on the Motus Tower project across lower and upper Michigan.

We hope you’ll join us on Monday, March 24, at People’s Church, 1758 North 10th Street, Kalamazoo. Come at 7:00 PM for some refreshments and socializing. Snacks and beverages will be provided. It’s helpful if you bring your own coffee cup. The one-hour program will start at 7:30. Masks are recommended but not required in the church. Handicap parking and access is at either the front or the rear entrance.
We will have a simultaneous Zoom link to the meeting for those who can’t make it or feel uncomfortable as yet to attend in person. This link will be available shortly before the meeting in the April newsletter and on our event calendar – https://kalamazooaudubon.org/calendar/. We will also be recording it for later viewing.

This event was submitted to our community calendar page by an outside organizer and is not a Michigan Audubon event. If you have questions, please reach out to the event organizers or the contact information provided in the event description.