15th-27th Jan: Into the forest zone....

After an unavoidable 2 nights in Accra to obtain our permit to work in the forest reserves, we head west along the Cape Coast road. The first bout of roving takes in Kakum national park and adjacent forest and farmland, and 4 other forest blocks in a transect south to north. We have moderate success finding wood warblers in degraded forest edges, but in the closed canopy within Kakum for example, we find none.  Without the playback this would come as no great surprise perhaps, but the output from the playback device is pretty powerful, and we’re fairly sure that we should have had some response if the birds were up there. Do they really not like the forest interior?

Further north near to Lake Bosumtwe we barely touch proper forest, our path taking us through farms within the forest reserve, and timber plantations that are perfectly normal practice in these reserves of resource, rather than those of biodiversity such as the national parks.  Here we detect double figures of wood warblers, with a minimum of 6 calling from within the rather regimented plantation. Again, more questions are raised as to the preferred habitat of wood warblers in Ghana!

Roger & Japheth listen out for wood warblers in plantation within Bowumtwi forest reserve

We return to the study site in Kwahu for a site survey, producing similar numbers of birds to our previous count 2 weeks ago, and also reminding us of just how good the wooded farmland is here with higher densities than all of the 6 sites we traversed in the previous week. With an up-coming visit from Dr Danaë Sheehan and several other luminaries from the UK, Denmark and Poland, we can expect plenty of discussion as to how to progress and answer many of the questions that we are left pondering.

Sunday 6th –Mon 14th Jan 2013 Back to Ghana, and a visit from the experts!

The New Year is underway, and the Ghana wood warbler team is augmented by the arrival from the UK of project manager Danaë Sheehan and head of species recovery Norbert Schaffer from the RSPB’s International department, and Franz Bairlein, from the Institute of Avian Research in Germany and one of the world’s foremost bird migration experts, all here to visit the study site and formulate a programme of fieldwork for the remainder of this season and for those to come.

After a brief visit to Ghana Wildlife Society HQ, we set off for the study site, the old team feeling a little anxious as to what first impressions the ‘new’ members will get from the wooded farmland at Pepease.  For our first morning in the field we walk the usual transect route that we follow to do the regular wood warbler survey.  Our own first impressions are that the vegetation has not dried out anything near as much as it had done by January of last year.  The air is dry, suggesting the harmattan may be just starting, but very little burning has taken place.  Thankfully we’re able to find a few wood warblers for the visitors, but here in the eastern section of the site, where no wood warblers were ringed last month, no colour ringed birds are spotted.  The following morning we head for the western side, where last month we caught and colour-ringed 11 birds.  This time we spot 4 of these, and a decent number of unringed individuals too.  Of note was the number of birds that could be seen with incomplete tails, demonstrating nicely that they are well into their winter moult.  All in all a great introduction to the site, and aside from the field visits some very interesting discussions about the future directions for the fieldwork were had.

Danaë, Norbert and Franz continued their Ghana visit with a trip to the lowland forest zone, whilst over the next 3 days we undertook a full site survey, with additional waypoints through a site extension encompassing the area inhabited by Black Star, our second tagged bird from last November. We then tackled the issue of some habitat recording for the areas occupied by the three tagged birds from November and December, and also spent time dissecting some of the whole-site habitat survey from the end of last season, before we embark on mapping any changes in late March.  Throughout this period we note that after the dry air of the 7th and 8th of January, the humidity levels have risen again.  There really is no sign of the harmattan yet....

Our study-site tasks completed, we then planned our own foray into the forest zone.  With the local wood warblers in moult rendering them near un-taggable, and after our experience last season of failing to catch any in January and early February (save the one tail-less individual!), our next job is to visit as many of the forest blocks in the south as possible. The aim is as last season – to prove or otherwise the presence of wood warblers in the forests that we have not yet visited, to improve the model that will help to predict the presence or absence of wood warblers elsewhere.  On top of this, we will attempt to measure wood warbler densities in the varying forest types and qualities, and where time permits, the adjacent farmland.  Should prove pretty interesting!!

1st - 12th December - Final push to catch more birds

These last two weeks have flown by!   After expressing a wish to catch more wood warblers in our last post, on the 2nd December the team managed to get a third, and was named Cocoa.  Unfortunately with one of our two radio receivers out of action, it did mean that we had to leave it at 3 birds to track - enough to keep the team busy with 3 tracks per bird per day.  This only lasted until the 6th, however, as by then Roger and Japheth were having problems with Black Star. The problem was solved when they found its tag on the ground, attached to a moulted tail feather.  This is about the time when they should be starting their moult, and so it came as no great surprise.

With Black Star now out of the picture, so to speak, and just 2 trackable wood warblers remaining, we wondered whether it was wise to try and tag another bird with just a few days left, when a tag can last up to 3 weeks.  We decided against it after carrying out a site survey on the 7th.  When using playback to illicit a response from birds otherwise not seen, both Asante and Cocoa were detected, their colour rings clearly visible.  Also, a much greater number of birds appeared to be around, compared to our earlier counts on the 16th & 17th November, and, it seemed, more than were around even since Cocoa was caught.  Therefore some more trapping effort was embarked upon to just colour-ring as many as possible.  Having learnt last season that we can resight November & December-caught birds even in late March, the more colour-ringed birds around, the better. 

Asante's tag eventually failed on the 9th, which allowed Roger and Japheth even more time to try catching and colour-ringing.  In the last few days in the field, in between tracking, R & J colour-ringed another 8 wood warblers - a testament to their great effort, but also perhaps to the genuine increase in overall numbers now present.  We now have 10 colour-ringed birds on the main site, plus Black Star a few hundred metres outside.  Should provide us with some extra home-range info if we get any resightings from January.

We wrapped up on the study site on the 12th, with Japheth and Oppong returning to Accra, hopefully for a good rest!  Now back in the UK, Roger and I will re-group with and expanded team on the 6th of Jan, and will hopefully be back in the field on the 8th.

For the time being, have a Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2013!

21st-30th November Tracking gets tricky, and more birds are required!

Lately things have been proving difficult.  On the evening of Asante’s capture on the 20^th  the signal from his transmitter disappeared altogether, and we were worried that he may have fled the study site.  However, on the 21^st some extensive searching picked up on a signal, some 500m from where he was caught, and eventually led us to a spot a full 1km from the catch site.  Over the next couple of days he was fairly mobile, but eventually he settled down, roosting and feeding in one area, and spending much of the day in a wooded area some 300m away.  Meanwhile, a second bird was caught on the 22^nd.  Named Black Star, after the star on the Ghana flag and the name of the national football team, he proved to be even more difficult to pin down upon release.  In this case he moved 1km away to the west, way beyond the bounds of the study area defined last year.  Moving into more difficult terrain for us trackers, we could only estimate his position for a few days, if indeed we could get a signal for him at all.  On the 27^th the signal was strong enough for us to discern more readily which direction to head for through the forest. In uncharted territory, we finally spotted him in an Albizia some 850m from his release site, so a fair bit closer than our earlier estimates (we’re pretty sure he’s moved closer than he was on earlier dates).  Since then he’s been spotted once each day (the time and effort it takes to get to where he’s hanging out precludes any more frequent search attempts, with Asante trackable 3 times per day).  With one team tracking, the other (and occasionally Oppong helping out too!) has been attempting to catch more wood warblers for tagging, but with no luck after many hours of effort.  The 2 tagged birds are giving us some great data, but it would be nice to get at least another 1 if not 2 to keep us busy with tracking until we leave on the 12^th of December.

15th – 20th November Return to Pepease, and first bird tagged.

Our brief stay in Accra was a most welcome change, staying as we did at a new and cheaper hostel to the default and with a commanding view over the city from the somewhat under-patronised “Starview” roof-terrace bar!  Batteries recharged, we set off for Pepease, and after 4 hours we reach our old digs and are met by our ever-welcoming landlord Ola.  Ola’s garden is looking particularly green compared to how we left it last March, and it transpires that the rains this year arrived quite late and have continued on into November.  It suggests that our study site will also have changed considerably, and may well be more overgrown than this time last year.  Things could prove a bit tricky when trying to track any birds we catch!

Our first two mornings are spent assessing if, and how many, wood warblers are on site, by surveying the usual transect route.  After what we’ve encountered in the Volta Region, it’s no great surprise that we find a wood warbler here on the 16^th (there were a handful detected on the nearby mountain Odwenanoma this time last year); but having found none here on the 14^th November 2011, I am a little surprised that we come across as many as we do.  Still, they’re not yet at the levels that we had by mid-December last season.

Of course encouraged by our findings, and some seven days ahead of our first efforts last year, on the 18^th we have our first go at catching, but without any success.  Still no luck on the 19th, but on the 20th we catch our first Ghana wood warbler of the season, and in the same spot as our third bird last season, on the easternmost edge of the study site.  Inspired by the BTO's cuckoo tracking project, this year we've decided to give the birds names - and in alphabetical order.  So our first-caught bird is now known as Asante - the name of the most famous tribe and kingdom of Ghana.  We await the next few days to see just were Asante settles, if indeed he stays around at all!

13th November Approaching Togo, then to Accra

Of course one’s inklings or gut feelings sometimes turn out to be true, other times not.  Today was one of the latter!  At our first stop en route to the proven wintering ground for at least one wood warbler in Feb last season, in some degraded forest/farmland, what do you know, we find a wood warbler.   Yesterday’s assumption that we may be ahead of the birds is quite wrong!  Point disproven, we aim for an area of protected forest abutting the Togo border, at the Wli Falls community project.  Upon arriving at the village we are greeted by a local guide to take us through the forest towards the falls, and at regular intervals along the forest path we switch on the wood warbler song and call and await a response for some moments after.  The exercise proves fruitless in terms of wood warblers, sadly, but really quite worthwhile as regards the scene that unfolded at the end of our walk.  Yes, there was a pretty spectacular waterfall, but also, hanging from the rock-face right next to the falls, was a host of straw-coloured fruit bats, apparently enjoying the noise from the tumbling water. If I eventually get a better link to the internet, I’ll post a picture!   Having essentially achieved our goal, i.e. finding a wood warbler at the same northernmost latitude in the east as we’d explored for them last year, we set off for Accra; a quick service for the car is required, and some respite for the team before we settle back into catching and tracking mode at Pepease from the 15^th.

11th-12th November Tamale to Volta Region

As expected, the drive east is across some very flat, treeless zones, some partially flooded though and therefore with a few interesting birds (pair of aerial-displaying giant kingfishers was pretty good, swamp flycatcher and marsh harrier also excellent).  Largely, though, it’s not much good for wood warbler hunting, and a final hope of tree-lined river vanishes on our approach to the crossing of the Oti at Domanko. A look at our rather poor tourist map of Ghana should have told us that here is the uppermost reach of Eastern arm of Lake Volta, hence a waterscape with few trees, and even fewer birds.  Not entirely sure why we see so few birds on Ghana’s fresh water lakes – are birds so hunted that none remain or stay?  The least-disturbed vegetated margins have plenty of African jacanas, squacco herons, and no doubt plenty of unseen rails and crakes, but the open waters, to our eyes at least, hold very little. We continue on after lunch to find our destination town of Nkwatia, a bed for the night, and time for a look round for suitable areas to search the next day. With plenty of time before dark, Rog and Japheth bravely strode across river to continue a route started near the road and heading into wooded farmland.  An hour of searching here found no target birds, so finally we headed back to find the Kyabobo National Park entrance to enquire about a visit the next morning.  “Come back at 07:30” they said.  A bit late to be starting a first survey of the day we think, so we decide to try elsewhere from 06:00, and then progress to the park for the appointed time.

The next day, first transect we choose is along the “main road”, a fairly quiet dirt road with promising wooded farmland on either side.  Savannah tree species are still present here, such as Shea, but we also have the first specimens this season of the Albizia tree species that we typically find many wood warblers using on the study site at Pepease.  A pioneer species of secondary forest growth, it is not generally found in the savannah zone, so we feel we’re about to enter the southern forest zone proper now.  I’m sure a better knowledge and grounding in forest tree identification would confirm it – I will be seeking more help with this!  Japheth is doing a sterling job on this front.  As we’ve travelled around Burkina and Ghana, he’s been collecting and labelling leaf samples from unidentified tree species that we find the wood warblers using.  Although mainly savannah and gallery forest species so far, this grounding will certainly help us later on.  No wood warblers in this first hour in the field, but a very good prolonged look at a “spotted”-type flycatcher and a few snippets of call confirms its identity as a Gambaga flycatcher – a bird we’d like to have seen up at the escarpment 2 days ago!

Back at the park entrance and the reception area, we discover that not only is there no-one there to be our guide to set off straight away, but also that it is at least another 3 km walk to get to the edge of the protected forest.  With the cost involved (park entrance and guide fees) plus the available time, we regretfully depart to seek our own forest patches more cheaply along the road out of town.  A first stop (after our usual bush breakfast) takes us through promising forest with no wood warblers but plenty of white helmet shrikes, then up onto a wooded savannah hillside, with fewer birds of note.  The next stop is on a diversion well off the main road to seek a wooded valley seen on the “satellite” image, and approaching the higher elevations of a forested ridge.  Sadly no sign of any forest close to the driveable track – it’s pretty much all farmed, with the ridge a good couple of kilometres away to the west.  That valley though does hold some forest remnants, and just a couple of points of playback garner a response from a lone wood warbler.  At the northern edge of the forest zone (albeit degraded), this bird could by now be here for the winter, but at this relatively early stage, could it still be on passage?

A few more stops en route south give us no joy, which to us, initially at least, suggests that few if any wood warblers have made it this far south by this date. We plan a revisit tomorrow to one of the areas near Hohoe where last February we confirmed that wood warblers were wintering. If no luck there, then perhaps we are arriving a little ahead of the birds.