A warm welcome

I have just returned to APLORI after a long break in the UK and it’s good to be back. The change at APLORI is quite something – the dry and dusty place I left in April is now lush and green. The Bishop birds are in their glorious red plumage and other birds are busy hurrying about with nesting material, all to a backdrop of stunning butterflies and wild flowers. It is also cool and cloudy – perfect weather for fieldwork!

I headed out to the field this morning to see if I could find any whinchats. My site is now more akin to a marsh than a dry savannah full of thorns and I quickly gave up on keeping my feet dry. I soon saw a whinchat and checked it for rings, and astonishingly it was one of my birds from last year! What a treat. I could barely contain my excitement, much to the amusement of my field assistant. I still remember where each individual held a territory, and amazingly this bird had returned to the same territory it held last year. It’s incredible... to think that this tiny bird flew all the way to Europe to breed and then found its way to the same bush in the middle of Africa is just amazing. Through the course of the morning I found two more birds from last year, again in the same territories or closeby. One was perched on the very same bush were I caught it last season. It's still early days, so I am excited to find just how many of last year's birds return. I am quite proud of them.

There were also new birds about, but not too many. I suspect that it is still early. The majority of the site is still empty, and I noticed that the whinchats are sticking to the areas on the edges of farms, especially maize fields. I wonder why – perhaps these areas are better protected from predators, or offer better feeding prospects? The middle of the site is indeed quite flooded and thick with grass, whereas farmed fields have plenty of dry, open ground where whinchats normally feed. I suspect that it’s a combination of the two. It seems likely that the ‘better’ territories have been occupied first. This has indeed been found to be the case in other long distant migrants, such as American Redstarts. It will be interesting to see if these early birds shift territories throughout the winter as more individuals show up and more territories are occupied. What will happen when the habitat dries out, the ground becomes bare and the crops are harvested? The best way to tell will be to ring these early birds as soon as possible, and that is the plan for the coming weeks. I will also re-catch later-year’s birds, although if they can remember their way back to the same bush, I wonder if they will remember what a spring trap is? Let’s hope not, as re-trapping individuals between years is key to a large part of my research.

 Three birds so far (circled in red) have returned to the same territories this year

I also visited one of the two smaller sites yesterday evening, again finding a few new birds. It was late in the day and the sun was on its way down, so I am sure there are more. There is not a whiff of a whitethroat yet, however, so I’ll spend the rest of the week scouting out the other sites and then next week will see the first CES after the rainy season. I suspect it will be busy! I wonder what the other site is like now. The rains have made it hard to get about, so let’s hope it dries out soon.

I'll be posting over the next few weeks about what the migrants are up to and on what the first CES of the season brings.

Emma

You can read more about my research here