The project
Our knowledge of ecology of migrants in their wintering grounds is extremely poor and severely hampers our ability to explain these declines and conserve this group of species. We lack even basic information about when birds arrive, the habitats they use and how they move around Africa.
The aim is to understand how Palearctic-African migrants use and move around the different vegetation zones found in West Africa, ranging from the semi-desert Sahelian region in Burkina Faso to the lush tropical rainforest in southern Ghana, and whether habitat change may impact them on their wintering grounds.
During the temperate winter of 2009/2010, using point count methodology and mist-netting, we recorded migrants along a degradation gradient at five different stations on a north-south transect. In 2010/2011 we plan to re-visit these sites as well as roving further afield to get a broader picture of migrant habitat use.
Mark Hulme from BTO will be flying out to Ghana in a few days to resume fieldwork with our colleagues from GWS and Paul Watts, our new ringing volunteer. We are all waiting with interest, news on the numbers of migrants that the team finds – and hoping that they are more abundant than two months previously when the team last visited each of the sites.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.