At the vulturine guineafowl research programme at Mpala Research Center, we've been using the e-obs Bird Solar Tags to investigate space-use in vulturine guineafowl in Kenya since 2016. The tags have been extremely durable and given the reliable exposure to sunlight at the equator to charge the batteries, some tags have collected high-resolution data (minimum 10 fixes every 5 min, and at times continuous 1Hz data) uninterrupted for over 5 years. The tags ‘manage’ their own battery by collecting less high resolution data when the battery-level dips below certain thresholds (which are set by the user).

Data can be remotely downloaded (depending on the vantage point, reach is about 500 m) and the tags can be remotely reprogrammed to new settings (e.g., additional sensor data such as ACC can be switched on or off at any time).

The tags are accompanied by a detailed manual and the e-Obs team is very quick to reply to any queries (we have been in touch with them several times over the years to run new program settings by them).