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Prothonotary Warbler Nesting and Migration Sponsorship Program

Help Audubon Louisiana understand the nesting ecology and track the migrations of these declining songbirds. Understanding where and how Prothonotary Warblers spend their time once they migrate south of the United States for the winter is critical to their survival. Audubon Louisiana leads the Prothonotary Warbler Working Group, a collective of researchers, conservation organizations, and state and federal agencies, to implement conservation actions that will benefit Prothonotary Warblers in the United States and abroad.

A geolocator is a 0.5-gram (0.1% of one pound!) device that uses sunrise and sunset information to estimate daily locations of birds throughout the year. These sophisticated devices have only recently become small enough to put safely on small songbirds, like Prothonotary Warblers, revealing for the first time how individual birds migrate across the hemisphere!

Because migrating birds experience a number of challenges, both natural and man-made, only about 50% of our Prothonotary Warblers return each year. The migration data from geolocators can only be retrieved by catching these birds one year after they are deployed, which means that only 50% of geolocators, on average, are recovered to provide information.

Your support will help Audubon Louisiana deploy and recover geolocators, monitor nesting sites, and promote conservation of Prothonotary Warbler habitat in Louisiana and beyond. Donate here!