A new project is underway at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Researchers are looking into bird migration patterns to see where they're going and how they act in certain areas.

Birds singing in the trees is something that piques Ian Becker's interest.

Becker moved to Brownsville from California two years ago and enjoys birdwatching in his free time. He's working on a personal project on how severe drought affects migratory birds.

"As a follow-up to that, how do birds change migratory pathway in kind inflammatory air path, maybe what they are seeing on the ground?" Becker said.

Becker uses an app to track bird migration patterns. He believes a new project launched by UTRGV will help with his research. It's called a Motus Tower.

"With something like the Motus Tower, I can now have this fine scale, moving data where I can look at X amount that is being impacted by drought and development, or maybe in the air impacted by severe thunderstorms," Becker said.

The Motus project launched by UTRGV captures birds to track them.

Researchers will then put small devices on the birds and use an antenna to track when they're in the Rio Grande Valley.

"With this setup, we can get 10 kilometers of birds in the area. The tag will send a signal to the tower, and it will record the signal into the computer," UTRGV professor Andrea Contina said.

Towers are set up in other areas across the United States and will see where the birds go and how they act. The data gathered from the Motus devices can be accessed from a public database.

Contina says if birds migrate at the wrong time, the seasonal food they need might not be available.

"If they migrate in a way that does not follow the migration corridor that they are supposed to be on, they are going to die. The mortality rate is going to go way up," Contina said.

Becker says living in the Valley has helped him push to continue his passion for birdwatching.

"I spent time in Australia. It was one of the first times that I got connected to wildlife and how it connects to the community. So that's how I continued in college and birded a lot and really opened up here in the Valley. Birds are a cultural marking," Becker said.

UTRGV is expecting to see the results from the project this week.

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