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Season Watch

Bats' backs bear tiny trackers as researchers study summer movement

By Charlie Mitchell
Published April 23, 2026 at 8:00 AM CDT
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USGS biologist Paul Cryan releases a bat carrying a miniature radio transmitter. Researchers are increasingly turning to high-tech methods to try to learn more about the mysterious lives of bats.
Contributed
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Ernie Valdez/USGS
USGS biologist Paul Cryan releases a bat carrying a miniature radio transmitter. Researchers are increasingly turning to high-tech methods to try to learn more about the mysterious lives of bats.

Charlie Mitchell enjoys interviews with Morgan Swingen (1854 Treaty Authority wildlife biologist) and phenology teacher Michelle Martin.

Send us a voice memo through Speak Pipe!

Biologists get all the fun jobs.

In this week's episode of the Season Watch Podcast, we learn how Morgan Swingen, a wildlife biologist with the 1854 Treaty Authority, captured and tracked wild bats with teeny-tiny transmitters. The resulting research showed where bats hang out all summer: in cavities and crevices of trees!

In addition, we hear from partnering phenology teacher Michelle Martin and her class at Prairie Creek Community School in Northfield.

Attributions

  1. Tree Swallow call by Jonathon Jongsma, XC134156. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/134156.
  2. Morgan Swingen and Michelle Martin's interviews originally aired on KAXE.
  3. This episode was produced by Charlie Mitchell.

Love the podcast? Want to share a bat fact? Let us know! Send us a voice memo through Speak Pipe!

Email us at seasonwatch@kaxe.org.

Tags
Season Watch Season Watch PodcastKAXENorthern MinnesotaPhenologySpring Phenology
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Charlie Mitchell
Charlie Mitchell (she/they) joined KAXE in February of 2022. Charlie creates the Season Watch Newsletter, produces the Phenology Talkbacks show, coordinates the Phenology in the Classroom program, and writes nature-related stories for KAXE's website. Essentailly, Charlie is John Latimer's faithful sidekick and makes sure all of KAXE's nature/phenology programs find a second life online and in podcast form.<br/><br/><br/>With a background in ecology and evolutionary biology, Charlie enjoys learning a little bit about everything, whether it's plants, mushrooms, or the star-nosed mole. (Fun fact: Moles store fat in their tails, so they don't outgrow their tunnels every time conditions are good.)
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