18 -23 February: Three is the magic number

The wind on week three has become stronger, making it more difficult to catch the birds, and we are getting up earlier with the increasing day length to make sure the first couple of net rounds are as productive as possible. Early starts are meaning early nights, and a 9.00pm bed time is becoming the norm now. Monday on the south side was quiet but had two afro-trop rarities for this ringing site –African Moustached Warbler and Greater Honeyguide plus a Garden Warbler originally ringed in Holland.

The weather this week is exceptionally hot and humid, fifteen minutes after a cold shower you feel like having another. In the shade of the plantains the group had a good day on Tuesday for migrants with ten new birds, including a new Nightingale and three retraps, and a more moderate Wednesday session with four new Reed Warblers, a Pied Flycatcher and a retrap Garden Warbler. Local birds included two retrap Common Wattle-eyes, one from October 2011 and one from earlier in our trip. The slower session allowed us to pack up the south east nets and put up the the north east nets again, speedily in time for Mark’s birthday celebrations. Vicky had planned some birthday surprises with the expert help of Eric – (now a mixologist as well as a chef) who made home-made pina-colada with fresh pineapple and coconut, mixed, of course with some rum as a present, a homemade card and traditional spice bowl and grinder. Many happy returns Mark!

Celebrating Marks birthday (Vicky Gilson)

The next day brought a new Lizard Buzzard and our success with catching migrants continued with two Pied Flycatchers, Reed Warblers and Garden Warblers.

Lizard Buzzard and Vicky (John Black)

In the afternoon amidst oppressive conditions and under mountainous clouds the south nets were taken down and placed back on the north west side as more Nightingales were singing there. With the temperature and humidity rising we were very relieved when rain fell later, albeit very briefly the clouds soon rolling away as if nothing had ever happened, and had a magic effect on the humidity so we were able to get some proper sleep for the first time in several nights. Friday was a brilliant bird day for variety with Garden, Reed, and Grasshopper Warblers, Wryneck, and a retrap of a Nightingale ringed by us in the first week here, showing it is a resident bird. African Pygmy Kingfishers and a Yellow-crowned Gonolek which had not been caught before at this site added a splash of colour to the otherwise brown/grey bird day.

Grasshopper Warbler and Wryneck (Mark Hulme)

African Pygmy Kingfishers (Vicky Gilson)

Yellow-crowned Gonolek (Mark Hulme)

Amazingly in the morning John extracted a control Reed Warbler from the north west nets, our second control, and from Holland again! Obviously on a winning streak having extracted both the controls we are hoping John will make it third time lucky for us with another.

Above Garden and European Reed Warbler controls from Holland

A Lizard Buzzard rounded off the day, when chatting at the table during a blank net round a Lizard Buzzard came hurtling from the sky, and hit the ground with a thud next to our ringing base. Concerned it had been shot at first John leapt up to see what it was, the inanimate bird suddenly got up and flew off, a lucky agama lizard scurrying into the bushes just having escaped its talons. We are learning to always expect the unexpected here! Wildlife is even following us indoors, praying mantis attracted to the light, giant wasps looking for places to nest, large and intimidating flat spiders lurking in between the gaps of the skirting boards, and recently discovered colony of termites currently eating Vicky’s bedroom door.

Following the usual raucous Nsoatre Friday night from the energetic locals (for we are now fast becoming grumpy stop-ins owing to the early mornings) a sleepy team again assembled for ringing on the north side. There was a horrible smell by the north east ride which was later discovered by John to be small mongoose that had died at some point after being caught around its arm and head in a spring loaded snare. These cruel traps are widely used throughout the local area and indiscriminately used for hunting bush meat, we have seen snakes and ground squirrels trapped in them also. We all hope that the use of these inhumane devices is stopped.

On a more positive note, our efforts were rewarded with 17 migrant birds captured, including five Nightingales. Three of these were new birds without rings, and one of the retraps was a bird that had been fitted with a tail mounted radio tag in January 2012 (the tag has long since dropped off) and to our delight the remaining retrap provided our third Geolocator recovery! This bird is suspected to have already been on passage when the device was fitted in 2012 and was carrying the most fat of any Nightingale trapped this month, indicating the journey northward is underway. We are looking forward to discovering if the data from this individual tells a different story to the two devices already recovered from Nightingales that were known to over-winter locally.

John, Vicky and Mark with two Nightingales, the one on the right is the third caught with a geolocator (Nick Aduse-Gyan)

Feathers parted to reveal the geolocator device in-situ (Mark Hulme)



3rd-5th February: Welcome back to Ghana

A new expedition for the BTO nightingale out of Africa project. This year the experienced team, Dr Mark Hulme BTO research ecologist (Ghana 2010 and 2011), Vicky Gilson and John Black BTO volunteer bird ringers (Ghana 2012), Nick Aduse-Gyan an intern from Ghana Wildlife Society (Ghana 2011, and 2012), and Eric Cudjoe our chef and driver (Ghana 2010) have a new goal: Return to Nsoatre study site and retrap as many of the 12 Nightingales that were fitted with geolocators by the team in 2012 as possible.

The first couple of days after having arriving in Ghana involved preparing for the field, picking up essential supplies, organising permits and acclimatising to the heat and new surroundings. Following the mostly hassle-free acquisition of the research permit and picking up the ringing kit held at Ghana Wildlife Society offices, the group drove to Nsoatre, stopping en route for such culinary delights as red red beans with plantain, the sometimes feared by those with delicate tummies-okra stew with banku, and picking up delicious plantain crisps from the toll station sellers who crowd the queuing cars making it hard to resist these tasty treats. Whilst not distracted by food the group spotted a few birds as the car headed north west of Accra towards Ivory Coast: Shikra, Laughing Dove, Western Grey Plantain-eater, Hooded Vulture, Senegal Coucal, Common Fiscal, Pied Crow, Palm Swift, Yellow-billed Kite, Woodland Kingfisher and also of enjoyed a lot of very large Straw Coloured Fruit Bats putting on an aerobatic display for us during daylight in Accra.

Once arrived the team decided on a plan to catch the 12 Nightingales. It is hoped they are all resident overwintering birds, which return each year to the same spot, and remain in that area until spring migration, however, it is also possible that they were caught when they were just passage migrants passing through on their way to other areas, in which case the chance of catching those Nightingales would be slim as the routes may change, and their stay at Nsoatre may only be brief. The team has decided to target the north west and south west sides of the Ivory Coast road first to target eight Nightingales that had geolocators put on them at those areas last year in the hope that they are creatures of habit.

By Vicky Gilson  

Thursday 18th Oct. City park visit

We take a long-planned break from tracking this morning.  Aware from previous experience that disturbance can be a bit of an issue on Thursdays with noisy children around the ringing site, we leave for Ouaga forest park early  to check on presence of wood warblers there.

After a quiet start, with a flock of lesser blue-eared starlings overhead and later foraging for berries in some low shrubs, we hear a first nightingale, soon followed by another, and then a couple of melodious warblers.  A willow warbler is seen, but for a while no wood warblers respond to the mp3 playback.  Things pick up a little as the sun rises and mixed Estrilda finches flit around low on and near the path.  At about 0630, we hear our fist wood warbler call.

A stroll around a fair section of the park over the next 3 hours yields an amazing 54 wood warblers, including at one spot over 15 birds – we actually lost count as they kept arriving in response to the playback!  To me this is a truly amazing tally, especially when one considers the total lack of records from Burkina in our first year of surveys – the park was clearly the place to be back then, if perhaps only during October!  It seems hard to believe these birds will remain here once the site begins to dry out, and one would expect them to head south to more-humid zones as the days pass.

After a quick shop for breakfast things and a visit to the office, we head back to attempt tracking again after the difficulties of last night.  We have absolutely no problem whatsoever!  All 3 birds are easily located, so our worries about a hastened departure are assuaged for now.

We’re invited to dinner with Henri this evening.  A very un-African sausage and mash!

Wednesday 17th Oct. Decoy wood warbler works wonders!

Following last night’s rather stormy weather, we manage to find the tagged birds quite easily; bird “10” is in a surprisingly low bush, happily preening away, and the other two are also quickly located.  We wonder whether the lost tag from the 14^th/15^th may have made its way down from its suspected lodgings in that tree.  Using the radio receiver, it is very quickly pin-pointed on the ground – once again still attached to a pair of moulted tail feathers.  It does seem odd that these birds should drop their feathers quite so readily.  The Ghana birds, which didn’t arrive on site until well after mid-November last year, retained their tags until we left the site on the 13^th of December, which was actually just after the start of moult witnessed in other birds in the area.

Our trapping effort with the mp3 playback is yielding very little, so we decide to try our wood warbler decoy one more time.  Oppong deftly straps it to a “branch” of a small “tree” (a fallen piece of brushwood) and then sticks this vertically in the ground right next to the net with the mp3 song playing.  Not really expecting much, after all the song alone is not working and the decoy has not appeared to work before, we are therefore surprised when 20 minutes alter Japheth returns from a net round with 3 wood warblers.  I’m not even sure I’ve seen 3 wood warblers in a net before – in fact, definitely not!  We colour-ring and fully process these birds, but we won’t be tagging any more birds for now.  We need to move on to other potential wood warbler sites in southern Burkina within the next week.  Ideally we’d like to get some gauge of the importance of the region as a staging post before the birds head further south to the more humid forest zones, in Ghana and beyond.

This evening Roger and Japheth report that one bird has apparently completely disappeared, and the other 2 are getting tricky to find!  Well, this rather brings our potential departure date forward!  The “vanished” bird’s tag was due to last well into next week.  If this is the case, then more exploration for potential wood warbler sites will begin over the weekend – but where should we go?  Time to consult some satellite images, and our colleagues at Naturama!

27th Jan: Quality if not quantity

Nightingale Team: Ringing south of the road this morning, strangely virtually no birds except for another Nightingale, two Great Reed Warblers (impressive in the hand) and a Whinchat. Quality if not quantity. Our eighth Nightingale in 11 days.
The Whinchat is of special interest to me since starting a BTO Whinchat project on Salisbury Plain two years ago. This is the first time I have had a chance to observe this species in ‘ winter’ habitats to think about the behaviour and ecology of the species here. Also nice to study the plumage characteristics of this individual at this point in time mid-way through the winter. This species can be tricky to age (and sex in some individuals), though this particular female still retained juvenile wing coverts.

More on the Whinchats later.

Just time to say: hats off to our two volunteers, Bee and Vicky. Both great each day with a seemingly inexhaustible sense of purpose. Their skill and dedication to tasks is invaluable to the project and we are privileged to have them on board. Thank you both!

Posted on behalf on Ian