Dear Motus users in Europe,
We warmly invite you to our online Motus Meeting Europe, which will take place on 4 March 2026 from 09:00 to 16:00 Central European Time. I’m happy to provide you with the corresponding link to the online room upon request.
This will be our agenda:
9:00 Login & help with BigBlueButton (the used online conference platform)
9:15 Start
9:15 - 9:20 opening words (Heiko)
9:20 - 11:00 Session 1
Short updates from Motus Europe Members, open for ONE representative per country, and time for discussion; please see details below.
11:00 - 11:20 Short break
11:20 - 12:45 Session 2 (about 15 min presentation + 10 min discussion each):
Reed April McKay (Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway)
“Bats on the Move – or not? Activity of migratory bat species in southwestern Norway studied with the Motus network and broadscale acoustic monitoring”
Georg Rüppel (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany)
„An R package to model flight paths from radio-telemetry networks – An introduction for users”
Dmitry Kishkinev (Keele University, United Kingdom)
”COST-Action for European Motus capacity building”
12:45 – 13:45 Lunch break
13:45 - 14:50 Session 3 (about 15 min presentation + 10 min discussion each):
Leo Körner (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany)
„Spatial and temporal migration pattern of the Yellow-browed Warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus) in Europe during autumn”
Daniel Bloche (University of Haifa, Israel)
“Migration distance and stopover behaviour of trans-Saharan migrants in the Levant”
Thomas Lameris (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)
“Experimentally increased food availability allows for earlier departure in a long-distance migratory shorebird”
14:50 - 15:00 Short break
15:00 - 15:55 Discussion round
15:55 - 16:00 Closing remarks (Heiko)
16:00 End
For session 1, we encourage ONE person per country to present a five-minute summary based on the following guiding questions. Slides are optional and you can also present spontaneously. Please coordinate yourselves!
- Who are you representing? Institutions, people or teams.
- What are the latest developments, improvements and problems in your country regarding Motus?
- What are your leading biological research questions that you will tackle with Motus?
- How many animals do you tag per year, and which ones?
- How many Motus stations do you have and where are they located? How is your funding organised for Motus stations? How long do you plan to keep those stations running in future?
- Do you have any specific needs for cooperation, support or help?
The countries will be arranged roughly in a north-east to south-west direction, resulting in the following order: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Greece, Israel + Africa + missing countries
For the discussion round, we would like to gather Europe-specific challenges that we can explore together. Please share your suggestions for topics of interest as comments to this post by February 28, 2026.
Best wishes and happy motusing,
Heiko Schmaljohann (Motus coordination group leader Europe + Africa) & Thiemo Karwinkel
