1KM Into Shimoni West!
Category: Coastal Forest, Shimoni Forest, Transect cutting | Date: Nov 12 2009 | By: gvikenya
Hey everyone,
Well I hope you’ve enjoyed the last couple of blogs about our marine team working with the Funzi Turtle Club. I’m rather jealous I wasn’t able to go along with them! I have had my hands full here on the mainland, carrying on with our coastal forest research.
We have been pushing on through the heat and the sweat towards our goal of setting up survey transects in Shimoni west forest. The last time I spoke about this I think we’d got about 600 metres up our future north / south spine.
Andy having a swing
We went in with a GPS a couple of days ago to continue plotting our progress, and to our delight we found that we had gone 1037 metres! We’ve broken the kilometer mark! By our estimations the north / south spine is going to be approximately 1.8 – 2 km long, allowing for up to 10 survey transects!
This highlights how far we have yet to go, as each transect is going to be longer than the spine, but we are not backing down! Our panga (machete) arms are bulging and our hands are blistered, but the future of research in Shimoni’s beautiful and unique coastal forest is in our hands, and every hour we spend in there takes us closer to assessing the conservation status of Shimoni west.
Andy and Chelsea
Once we’ve uploaded the GPS points onto the map, I’ll stick them up on the blog so you can all have a look for yourselves!
Tags: coastal forest research, conservation status, Funzi turtle club, gps, machete, Marine team, north / south spine, panga, Shimoni Forest, Shimoni west forest, survey transects
Southern Banded Snake Eagle Spotted in Shimoni Forest
Category: Birds, Coastal Forest, Shimoni Forest, Southern Banded Snake Eagle | Date: Jul 13 2009 | By: gvikenya
Today in Shimoni East Forest was a particularly special one for us here on the south coast of Kenya. There were the usual vegetation and habitat surveys being conducted, as well as the primate community surveys which provided some wonderful sightings of the Angolan black and white colobus monkey. Today however, the limelight was stolen from these charismatic monkeys by a much rarer sight. Our research team was walking down the negative sections of transect 5, which is largely low, dense canopy, when Matt glanced up through one of the few breaks in the canopy and was provided the most spectacular view of a Southern banded snake eagle! It was gliding slowly, and surprisingly low over the canopy directly above givign him at least five seconds of perfect, uninterrupted visibility.
The southern banded snake eagle is listed on the IUCN red list as near-threatened, so all of us here are trained on its identification specifically so that we can be certain if we do happen to spot one. Matt clearly identified the thinly barred body and wing linings, the plain brown head and upper chest, and the tail with the four brown bands.
Southern banded snake eagles (Circaetus fasciolatus) have very restricted distributions, found only in Kenya in coastal areas, inland along the lower Tana river, and once near Voi amongst the Tsavo National Parks. They are locally common in Tanzania’s East Usambara Mountains. The preferred habitats are coastal areas and near-coastal forests.
This is a very exciting sighting not only because of the conservation status of the eagle, but because it reiterates that the Shimoni area is a confirmed habitat for the species. This will add weight to the research GVI is doing in Shimoni, in conjunction with the community-based organization Friends of Shimoni Forest with the eventual aim of protective status and community led management. The more we can highlight Shimoni Forest as a biodiversity hotspot and key habitat for threatened species, the sooner we will achieve this goal.
More information can be found at http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sites/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=3387&m=0
Pictures of the beautiful bird are available at http://www.tanzaniabirds.net/African_birds/Eagle_Southern_Banded_snake/sbse.htm
Tags: coastal forest research, Shimoni Forest, south banded snake eagle
The Frog Blog Part 2
Category: Amphibians, Coastal Forest, Shimoni Forest | Date: May 03 2009 | By: gvikenya
Matt wrote earlier in the week about an exciting frog find in the forest and as Saturday night came round his rainy season wish came true. At our forest base and office in Shimoni we were decidedly ‘off-duty’, kicking back and watching a film… Just before hitting the sack, I noticed a little visitor perched on the bars of the kitchen window and so our mini research team kicked in to action. Recognising the small amphibian from an individual we had caught a few years before, it didn’t take long to identify. We are fairly confident we have our second Tinker Reed Frog, or Hyperolius tuberilinguis.
This beautiful yellow-green reed frog reveals striking red-orange backs of the thighs when jumping. It has been suggested that this trait may serve to startle predators as it makes its escape, but the colour is the result of a concentrated supply of blood vessels under a thinner layer of skin, enabling an area of rapid water uptake, important for amphibians living in tropical East Africa! The body length of the frog suggested it may be a male, males often being smaller than females in the amphibian world, however the lack of a bright yellow throat indicates the reverse. If it was a female, the she may well have been out looking for a pool of water above which she can lay up to 400 eggs above the surface, attached to vegetation.
With the Hyperolius being a somewhat tricky genus within which to determine species, we’re pleased to have had an easy job with this one and look forward to seeing what else the rains will bring us. Would be nice if they gave us Saturday nights off though…
Corti
Tags: amphibian, coastal forest biodiversity, coastal forest research, reed frog
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