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Achievement Report Karongwe March 2017

Report Title
Birds A little more interesting that you once thought!

Objective
Expand volunteers understanding of common bird species and encourage a general interest and
awareness of their importance.

Summary
For most who come to our wildlife conservation project to complete a stint as a volunteer or intern, birds
are certainly the most difficult subject to grasp. Not only do they abound in number but each individual
sings their own song. For this reason 99% of the time staff initially note a lack of interest in the
population as a whole. To ignite an interest and contribute to citizen science, bird surveys are included in
our daily program.

Report
Birds number in their hundreds within South Africa, each playing an important ecological role. Birds are
essential to seed propagation, flower pollination, control of both insect and rodent populations,
scavenging of carcases and nutrient recycling just to name a few. Alongside these benefits they also
provide picturesque and intriguing specimens with their impressive mechanisms of flight, their striking
colours and their unique mating rituals.

The staff find it easy to connect with these incredible creatures, predominately because they have
developed a general knowledge of the population and their identifying features. Its gauging the interest
of the volunteers and interns that can sometimes be tricky, as the magnitude of the population in all their
different shapes and sizes is initially overwhelming. To mitigate this we conduct bird surveys on a weekly
basis. These are dedicated drives on which you find people looking up rather than down a rather odd
sight for passers by. As well as improving their bird knowledge by recording all species seen and heard
they are also making an invaluable contribution to citizen science. All species recorded are entered into a
nationwide platform called the South African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2).

SABAP2 is the most important bird conservation project in the region because a large number of other
conservation initiatives depend on the results of the bird atlas. You cannot determine the conservation
status of a species unless you know its range and how this is changing. So selection of sites and habitats
critical to bird conservation rely on the results of this project. The field work is done by more than 2100
volunteers, across 17339 pentads, who are making a huge contribution to the conservation of birds and
their habitats.

These surveys have proven to foster the growth for curiosity of bird populations on Karongwe and enable
those who already have a vested interest to feed their passion. We are seeing individuals bird lists
forever growing with healthy competition amongst each group of volunteers as to who can record the
longest list. However they go about it if we can instil an interest and hopefully a greater awareness going
forward we can be proud teachers!

If you would like find out more about the SABAP2 please visit http://sabap2.adu.org.za/.