It is hard enough to protect any species, but when you don’t even know where they are or which way they go the task can become impossible. This problem is one facing Common Nighthawks—a migratory bird whose populations have been declining for many years. We know that Common Nighthawks breed across North America during the spring and summer, but the details of exactly where they go in winter have eluded scientists.

Thanks to new tagging technology, which collected some exciting migration data published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology, we are now starting to build a picture of where these enigmatic and threatened birds are going...

This story was written for (and can be read in full at) Canadian Science Publishing.