This poor little guy (Red Knot) is carrying a geolocator. He (or She) was one of 47 birds banded, flagged and tagged with a geolocator in the spring of 2009. It's an amazing device that measures the time of sunrise and sunset to determine the global position. The time of sunrise (or sunset) determines longitude. The length of day determines the latitude.
The unfortunate thing is that the birds have to be recaptured to read the data since the device is too small to allow a transmitter so only three of the original 47 were recaptured. But, one of them had traveled 5,000 miles and flew non-stop for 16 days.
Red Knots breed in the Arctic and winter on the eastern shore of South America. There is a emerging understanding of the connection between Red Knots and the eggs of Horseshoe crabs. It seems the eggs of the crab are what fuel the Red Knot's lengthy migrations. A human caused population crash of the horseshoe crabs is directly affecting the Red Knots hence all the effort in studying them and their migrations.
Sorry, it's not great photo, just a great bird with a great story.
(For Trekkies, the reference to a Borg designation seemed appropriate considering the electronic add-ons the bird is wearing).
