As electronic technology has grown ever tinier, ornithologists have installed tracking devices on ever smaller bird species in the effort to learn more about their migrations.

This year, for the first time, Bicknell’s Thrushes will leave their New England breeding grounds wearing solar geolocators on their backs. Researchers are hoping to be able to retrace the thrushes’ route from the krummholtz forests they nest in to the Caribbean islands where they winter; very little is known about the rigors of this species’ migration, and the identification of significant “stop-over” sites along the way would be a major contribution to conservation efforts on behalf of this rare bird.