Posted by Rebecca Lehrke @rmlehrke

Hello there, today I would like to introduce you all to my friend S5, the roboswan.

Not S5: but even I’ll admit S5 looks a lot like S7 (shown above) so you get the idea

Yes I know that name is not very creative but I’m sure this bird will still peak your interest. S5 is not like other birds of its kind. Unlike other swans in my study, S5 likes to travel, likes an adventure. At the exact moment I am writing this (from the comfort of my home), I am also checking on S5, and yes, this swan is still on its adventure, hanging out in a freshwater inlet near the Manukau end of the Auckland Airport. S5, like all the birds, in my study are special. They all have remote-download GPS tracking devices attached to them. This means I can see where they are every five minutes.

The adventures of S5 – the live feed of GPS locations for S5 in the Manukau Harbour shown through an app on my phone

It’s not often that as an ecologist you can check in on where your study animals are from an app on your phone while you write a blog post in your lounge. As I have explained in a previous blog post my research involves using tracking devices to look at how the movement and location of black swans changes in response to management at the Auckland airport.

I have had the opportunity to work with some pretty amazing, and cutting edge technology for this study. We are using remote-download GPS tracking devices, which allow me to get a continuous stream of movement data on a number of swans around the airport. It is certainly fascinating and insightful already and we have only just started getting data.

Of course with great power comes great responsibility, so they say. Now that I have my data coming in, I have to start analysing it, and there’s a lot of data to work with! But at least I can check in on S5 each night and imagine what adventures its had while moving around the harbour.

A lot of data – raw GPS locations from less than a week for my eight study birds in the Manukau Harbour

Rebecca Lehrke is an MSc student in the Centre for Biodiversity & Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. She is using movement ecology to assess the efficacy of disturbance-based management of black swans at the Auckland Airport. She is supervised by Todd Dennis and Margaret Stanley.