Mikko Jimenez talks about BirdScan migration tracking: Young, Gifted & Wild About Birds, March 16

Mikko Jimenez with the BirdScan MRI equipment.

March 10, 2023 — During research season, Mikko Jimenez spends some of his nights sitting in the Pawnee National Grasslands in central Colorado monitoring a device called the BirdScan MR1.

A Ph.D. student at Colorado State University’s AeroEco Lab, Jimenez’s work focuses on bird migration in a new way.

Mikko Jimenez is the next speaker in this year’s Young, Gifted and Wild About Birds series. Join us via Zoom on March 16, at 7 p.m. for his presentation.

Buy tickets here for Mikko Jimenez's presentation. 7 p.m., March 16.

The BirdScan is a mobile radar unit that quantifies the movement of animals in the aerospace — in other words, the bats, the insects and, most importantly for his research, the birds that fly in the lower atmosphere.

The BirdScan not only detects movement, it can tell which kinds of birds — waders, passerines, swifts, etc. — are in the air based on the amount of reflectivity and wingbeat pattern. He describes it as an incredible piece of equipment – the only one in North America.

Conservationists agree that bringing back birds from their devastating population losses of recent decades will require protecting them not just on their breeding grounds or in their wintering areas but during migration as well.

Jimenez’s work with the amazing new equipment is not just awesome, it’s at conservation’s cutting edge. His presentation promises to offer important new insights.