Birds Eye View migration monitoring

Background

The SAEON Ndlovu Node, located in Phalaborwa (Limpopo Province), is tasked with supporting long-term data relating to environmental change in the savanna biome of South Africa. In order to capture the effects of global change on the natural and semi-natural ecosystems of the biome, a citizen science program is being initiated to measure changes in the migration phenology and abundance of common bird species. The objectives of the project are to both document changes in the migration dates of bird populations that are likely to occur over the coming decades as a result of various environmental changes (particularly climate change), as well as to provide baseline data that can be used to better understand the effects of global change on bird populations.

This project was inspired by the wealth of data on bird migration dates that exists in certain developed countries, particularly in Europe, as well as the success of other citizen science projects in South Africa, such as the Bird Atlas Project. Studies utilizing bird migration data from northern hemisphere countries have revealed that climate change is already affecting many bird populations, and the importance of environmental factors in the southern hemisphere (particularly Africa) in controlling the migration of north-south migrants. While a shortage of funding and suitable human resources may have prevented the collection of similar bird data in South Africa, the large number of amateur birding enthusiasts provide an opportunity to generate valuable long-term data of a similar nature.

Aim

  1. To record the arrival and departure dates of common migratory birds

    2. Implementation

    The project is open to anyone interested, though the focus is primarily on savanna regions, though this will probably be extended.

    1) Migration surveys, involving daily recording of the presence / absence of key species during pre-defined arrival and departure periods. The key species are likely to be restricted to species common enough to generate useful data: `

    • Wahlberg's eagle
    • Redchested cuckoo
    • European bee-eater
    • European swallow
    • Lesser-striped swallow
    • Woodlands kingfisher
    • Red-backed shrike
    • Paradise flycatcher
    • Plum-coloured starling
    • European Roller
    • Carmine bee-eater

    If you would like to participate in the bird migration monitoring project click here to download the registration form or contact Dr Dave Thompson

    Results

    An indication of some of the results we can hope to get came from the farm Birmingham in the Timbivati Game Reserve. Mr Eldrid Haplet kindly donated his data spanning the past 15 years. Bird observations have been recorded on a single property (Birmingham farm on the Timbavati Game Reserve) since 1992 by a single observer . Every month all species seen on the property are recorded, producing monthly data on 294 species spanning between 2 and 15 years per species. For migratory species (fig 1), the date of first observation each spring has also often been recorded. Despite many missing observations, the dataset indicates plausible trends in arrival date(figure above). While any patterns from data collected from only a single location must be obviously treated with caution, these results provide an indication of the type of data that the project aims to generate.


    Fig 1:The arrival dates of the Red-chested cuckoo and Wahlbergs eagle from 1991 - 2006