Archive/Biodiversity/BirdPix/Citizen Science/News/Virtual Museum

The Boom of The Bushveld!

Posted on by Willem van der Merwe

Southern Ground Hornbills Bucorvus leadbeateri are large birds, sometimes weighing more than 6 kg and standing about a meter tall on tiptoe. With their glossy black bodies and bright red, bare facial skin, coupled with a bold and fearless demeanor, they are conspicuous wherever they occur. But many people who see them don’t know what they are, to the extent that in the Kruger National Park they now have an accepted secondary name, ‘Turkey Buzzards’. This comes from American tourists, ‘turkey buzzards’ is what many Americans call their Turkey Vulture Cathartes aurea, a species that does not occur in Africa.

Although related to other hornbills, Ground Hornbills belong to their own family, the Bucorvidae. Apart from the Southern Ground Hornbill, there’s a second species, the Northern Ground Hornbill Bucorvus abyssinicus, that replaces it in similar habitat north of the Equator. It has a large, open casque on top of its bill, a yellow patch on the side of its bill, and blue and red (male) or entirely blue (female) facial skin. Unique features of the ground hornbills include not having carotid (neck) arteries, and walking on their tippy toes. They have very long, dense, impressive eyelashes, used to screen their eyes from the bright African sun.

Ground hornbills, as their name suggests, spend most of their time on the ground, preferring open savanna and grassland regions. They can fly up into trees, in which case they display their beautiful white primary wing feathers, that are usually hidden beneath the overlying black feathers. Their legs are much longer than those of other hornbills and together with their long necks this enables them to peer over tall grass. They walk on their toes to boot, with the ‘sole’ of the foot lifted high off the ground. The result is a stately step, that gives an impression of justified pride.

They are formidable predators, going out in hunting parties of up to 11 birds. Their long, curved bills are very strong. Their prey varies from termites to big tortoises and even mammals like hares. They use their bills to dig around in the ground in search of invertebrates, frogs, or the honeycombs and larvae of ground-nesting bees and wasps. They also regularly probe around in dung, especially elephant dung, to look for dung beetles or their larvae. Sometimes ground hornbills eat carrion too.

Unlike many other hornbill species, the Southern Ground Hornbill does not have a large hollow casque on top of its bill, just a raised ridge. The function of amplifying its call, like a resonating sound box, is carried out by its big throat pouch instead. In the male, this is entirely red; in the female it has a deep blue central patch. These colours emerge only on maturity; in chicks and juveniles, the bare facial skin is grayish. The inflatable throat pouch enables the birds to give a particularly deep, booming ‘hoom hoom hoom hoom’ call, from which they get their Afrikaans name ‘Bromvoël’ (roughly translated as ‘Boom Bird’). Their call can carry up to five kilometers. From a distance, the call sounds rather like the roar of a lion. To mistake a hornbill for a lion is not as silly as one might think – as a bird lover realized to his shock when under the impression that he was approaching a hornbill, he stumbled upon a lioness!

Although they inhabit open habitats, these hornbills do need trees. They roost up in the branches at night, and also nest in big trees. The nest is a large, open cavity or hollow, often at the top of large trees like Baobabs. Thus these birds need ample open ground in addition to very large trees, a particular habitat requirement that makes them vulnerable to human disturbance, like the felling of trees for wood or bush clearing for agriculture. But they will adapt and can live in open farm fields provided there are big trees nearby. Indeed, ground hornbills can flourish in rural areas with traditional light farming and livestock herding.

Ground hornbills roost as well as hunt in pairs or small groups. To maintain group bonds, they call, exchange food items and preen each other. They start hunting at dawn, and cover about 11 km (7 miles) per day. Sometimes they make use of bush fires, catching small animals as they flee from the flames. They will also catch small creatures disturbed by large animals like elephants, buffaloes or rhinos, and can often be found foraging in close proximity to these large mammals.

Other interesting behaviours include sunbathing with spread wings, or bathing by rubbing themselves against wet leaves and grass after rains. Sometimes they accidentally step in thorns, which they pull out with the precision grasp of their bill tip. Immature birds will play with each other at the roosts, doing a kind of jousting with their bill-tips, chasing each other or jumping on each other. The birds typically fly to and from their roosts while it is still dark, so as to try and keep their roosting places secret from potential predators.

Other than baobabs, ground hornbills will also nest in other large trees like Marula, Boer-Bean, Thorn (the larger species), Yellowwood, Jackal-Berry, Sausage, Fig, Bushwillow or Star-Chestnut Trees. They rarely use cavities in rock faces or earth banks. The female incubates her eggs alone. But she has help! The male, as well as other members of the family group, regularly bring food to her while she incubates. This is the largest bird species in the world that breeds cooperatively. Sometimes the female leaves her nest briefly for the sake of personal hygiene, leg-stretching, and to find some food for herself.

Although ground hornbill mothers always lay two eggs, it almost always happens in nature that only one chick survives. The chick stays in the nest for about three months, after which it joins the group. It stays in the group until it reaches adulthood, at about the age of 4 to 6 years. We still don’t know how long they live, but everything indicates that it is potentially quite long. They proliferate slowly – aside from the fact that they take long to mature, and that there’s usually only one breeding male and female per group, raising only one chick per breeding attempt, groups don’t even necessarily breed every year. Chicks are threatened by a number of predators, including cat and snake species. On average it takes every group a bit over nine years to successfully raise a single chick to maturity!

Southern Ground Hornbills face many threats from humans, habitat destruction being one of the main threats. Many of these birds die from eating poisoned bait farmers put out for jackals, caracals or other predators. Some are electrocuted on power lines. In areas with buildings they are sometimes directly persecuted by humans because they attack house windows – they see their own reflections and peck the panes to pieces under the impression that it is another, strange bird. This behaviour can be prevented by painting the windows, or by putting wire netting in front of them. A lesser known threat faced by these amazing birds is that of forgotten landmines in African regions where civil wars wreaked havoc. Because they probe deep into the ground with their sturdy bills, they are at risk of being blown up by buried land mines. Landmines are still found in large numbers in countries like Angola and Mozambique, remnants of wars that are technically over, but are still killing people and wildlife.

Being big, prominent, active members of savanna ecosystems, ground hornbills are considered a flagship species. When they thrive, it is a sign that the environment is healthy. Luckily, there are some wonderful projects that aim to help Southern Ground Hornbill population numbers, such as the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project.

The Mabula Ground-Hornbill Project is working to slow the decline by:

  • Harvesting and assisting the hand-rearing of redundant second-hatched chicks that dies of starvation in the wild nests.
  • Re-wilding of the hand-reared chicks by established groups in ‘bush’ training schools.
  • Reintroduction of these ‘rescued’ birds back into areas where they have become locally extinct, once the original threats in those areas have been mitigated.
  • Augmentation of non-viable groups in the wild.
  • Provision of artificial nests for wild groups with no or inadequate nests.
  • Research on genetics, behaviour and other important unanswered questions necessary for successful re-establishment.
  • Coordination of Awareness Campaigns, to educate the general public to the threats facing this flagship indicator species and to reinstate the bird into collective   memory in areas where it has become locally extinct.

Biodiversity/Citizen Science/OdonataMAP/Virtual Museum

First draft of new generation maps for dragonflies and damselflies

Posted on by Les Underhill

The map below shows coverage for OdonataMAP. There are records for only 1,101 of the 2,014 grid cells of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. That’s a little over half, 54% to be exact. And the table above the map tells us that only 182 grid cells have 103 or more records of dragonflies and damselflies! It is no wonder that we have been so shrill in encouraging all the OdonataMAPpers to submit their records. We have worked hard encouraging everyone with a photo of a  dragonfly to submit it to the OdonataMAP section of the Virtual Museum. We have run monthly “Shoot the Dragons Weeks” through the summer months for the past couple  of years. But we have a long, long way to go before we can come anywhere close to complete coverage and can make accurate distribution maps for all species.

We can’t wait forever to get distribution maps for species. We need them NOW. Conservation managers need to know where species occur, and where the most valuable sites for the conservation of dragonflies and  damselflies are. Here is the Virtual Museum distribution map for a common dragonfly, the Orange-veined Dropwing Trithemis kirbyi.

The table above the map tells us that there are an incredible 1,476 photographic records of this species in the Virtual Museum, and that there are another 252 records that come out of the ADDO database. But the map is still pretty spotty. It is clearly full of what, in the biodiversity mapping trade, are called “false negatives”. These are all the places in which the species does occur, but which no OdonataMAPper has yet visited! What this map shows is the grid cells in which Orange-veined Dropwings have been reported. It is a presence-absence map. No attempt is made to show whether the species is common or rare. We cannot tell from this map whether or not a large proportion of the records at a site are Orange-veined Dropwings. So this map has lots of deficiencies, but the most important of these is that it is stuffed alarmingly with “false negatives”.

What are we going to do about this? This is the point at which some judicious statistical modelling comes to the rescue. There are dozens and dozens of “species distribution models” which have been invented to crack this problem. It is important to say this at the outset. Statisticians-in-training get taught: ALL MODELS ARE WRONG; SOME ARE USEFUL. In spite of this, lots of statisticians actually have a deep belief that their models show the truth. And many of the biologists who use statistical models have almost religious faith in their modelling.

So the map below is the output of a statistical model that purports to show the actual distribution map of the Orange-veined Dropwing. It is based on both the two maps above. The computer algorithm (ie the programme) makes use of the actual points at which Orange-veined Dropwings occur, but it also makes use of the overall database contained in the first map. So every single  record in the OdonataMAP database has influenced this map to a greater or lesser extent.

The first thing you have to note about this new distribution map for the Orange-veined Dropwing is that you have to imagine the coastline and the borders of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. This is a draft and tentative map. Secondly, it is a model, so it is definitely not right. It is over to you to assess whether it is a useful “model” of the overall distribution, i.e. a distribution without the false negatives.

This distribution map looks astonishingly different from the presence-absence map above. For example, it is now shown to occur all over the arid northwestern parts of South Africa, especially the Northern Cape. KwaZulu-Natal seems to get down-played. What is going on? Amazingly, the new maps seems to be getting it right. A bit of detective work discovers that although coverage of the northwestern areas of South Africa is poor (this can be seen in the top map), a large proportion of the Odonata that occur here are of this species. Examining the date for Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal reveals the opposite. The top map shows that there is lots of data for many grid cells in these provinces. And many grid cells have records of Orange-veined Dropwing. But they form quite a small proportion of the total. So they are down-played. Time will tell whether the modelled map comes close to the truth. It certainly provides new insights into the distribution of this species.

Why does the map for the Orange-veined Dropwing have three colours? There is lots and lots of orange. There is some light brown, and there is some dark brown. The clue to this is in the map below, called the “Baseline” map.

This is the computer algorithm’s version of the top map, showing overall coverage. In the grid cells in this map which have large circles, the new distribution maps are well-supported by the OdonataMAP data (and the circles in the species map are dark-brown and ought to be pretty reliable). Where the circles in this maps are tiny, the modelled distributions might be unreliable (and the grid cells are shown in orange),  and the light-brown circles are intermediate.

There is lots of orange in the new map for the Orange-veined Dropwing. So the distribution across the Northern Cape is acknowledged by the model to be speculative.

The strategy for getting rid of the orange, and the speculation, is simple. We need more data from these regions. Looking at the “Baseline” map, it is clear that, besides the northwest, there are areas within the northern provinces that need data too!! We’ll unpack this more over the next few weeks.

In the meantime (this is written on 19 September 2019), we are desperately waiting for rain across the summer-rainfall region of southern Africa. The drought is currently so bad that there are hardly any dragonflies (or for that matter butterflies) in evidence. The OdonataMAPpers, and the LepiMAPpers, are having a hard time.

And, finally, here is a photo of the species that has been the topic of this blog, the Orange-veined Dropwing.

It was photographed by Riette Griesel at the Garingboom Guest Farm in the Free State.  It is curated in OdonataMAP at http://vmus.adu.org.za/?vm=OdonataMAP-956.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archive/Biodiversity/Citizen Science/News/OdonataMAP/Virtual Museum

There Be Dragons…

Posted on by Megan Loftie-Eaton

Dragons do exist, and they’ve been around for over 300 million years! They might not breathe fire, but they do have six legs, four wings, and extremely keen eyesight. These mini dragons are carnivorous insects known as dragonflies (Anisoptera) and damselflies (Zygoptera), belonging to the insect Order Odonata. In general, dragonflies are larger than damselflies, and perch with their wings held out to the sides; whereas damselflies have slender bodies and fold their wings over their body when at rest.

These beautiful insects are also important monitors of water quality. They are sensitive to environmental changes and play key roles in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats. They are predators as both nymphs (their larval stage) and as adults, feeding on a variety of prey including nuisance species such as mosquitoes and biting flies. Spending most of their lives underwater in rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes, their presence in aquatic environments is an excellent measure of water quality as they require clean water to thrive.

Platycypha caligata — Dancing Jewel — OdonataMAPped by Rob Dickinson in Kranzkloof Nature Reserve

As adults, dragonflies and damselflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air! They are true acrobats of the air. There are few species in the animal kingdom that can match the Odonata for spectacular flying ability. Dragonflies have two sets of wings with muscles in the thorax that can work each wing independently. This allows them to change the angle of each wing and practice superior agility in the air.

In their aquatic larval/nymph stage, which can last up to two years, they prey on just about anything — tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish fry, other insect larvae and even each other! Dragonflies and damselflies are great helpers when it comes to mosquito control. A single adult dragonfly can eat hundreds of mosquitoes per day. It surely pays to keep these natural helpers around and thriving.

Anax imperator — Blue Emperor — OdonataMAPped by Desire Darling in Van Staden’s Nature Reserve, Port Elizabeth

So how can you help to protect these amazing little dragons? Water is a scarce and valuable resource in southern Africa. With the recent droughts and climate change, this has become even more evident. We need to protect southern Africa’s water resources and manage them carefully for the benefit of people and wildlife. OdonataMAP, the Atlas of African Odonata, has the resources to help in this regard. One of the goals of OdonataMAP (and the other projects in the Virtual Museum) is to promote an appreciation of nature and biodiversity conservation throughout Africa. The Virtual Museum provides a platform for members of the public to contribute to biodiversity conservation projects by taking photographs of animals and plants in the wild and submitting them to the Virtual Museum. These very important records help us to understand the distributions of species in Africa, how they are being impacted by urbanization, pollution, agriculture, climate change, and what conservation actions are needed to protect Africa’s precious biodiversity.

The Animal Demography Unit has produced some of the most important and influential publications for the conservation of birds, frogs, reptiles, butterflies and other animals in the southern African region. The projects are all still growing, and we would like to extend the reach of these projects to as many people as possible.

A collage of ADU publications

OdonataMAP, a project funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation is the Atlas of African Dragonflies and Damselflies. OdonataMAP has a vast data resource available for all to use and we would love to collaborate with anyone in helping to protect and monitor South Africa (and Africa’s) water resources. For more information and to see how you can contribute, please visit http://vmus.adu.org.za and http://addo.adu.org.za.

And remember, we can, and should, all do our part to make our gardens and urban areas more wildlife friendly. Choose not to use poisons and pesticides in and around your home. Plant indigenous plants in your garden. Create a mini “forest” in your garden, by planting various layers of vegetation. Our wild neighbours have to continually adapt to the fluctuating conditions of human urban landscapes, but we humans can make better choices with the products we buy and what we flush down the drain, and to live more consciously so that we have minimal impact on the lives of the wildlife that we share habitats with. Together we can strive to live in harmony with nature and its incredible biodiversity. Plant trees, create natural ponds in your garden, avoid using poisons, put up owl boxes and bee hotels — — these are just a few simple things that we can all do to help our wild neighbours.

Palpopleura lucia — Lucia Widow — OdonataMAPped by Daina Russell in Richards Bay
Archive/Biodiversity/Citizen Science/Karoo/MammalMAP/News/Virtual Museum

Rabbits at The Riverside

Posted on by Willem van der Merwe

When people think of threatened species, they tend to think of big and “spectacular” species like whales, tigers, rhinos, or pandas. It is true that many large mammal species, except us (we are quite large mammals too, after all), are threatened – we are pushing everything else out, as our population keeps growing. But there are also many smaller mammals that are threatened too. One such species is the Riverine Rabbit Bunolagus monticularis of South Africa. It is also known as a Bushman’s Hare, and in Afrikaans, Doekvoet (‘cloth foot’, after its soft and fluffy feet) or Pondhaas (‘pound hare’, because in the 1930’s farmers were rewarded for a specimen with a payment of one Pound).

Though it is called a rabbit, in some ways it is more like a hare. For those who don’t know, the primary differences between rabbits and hares in Britain and Europe are:

1) Hares are longer and lankier in body shape than rabbits, and they have longer ears.

2) Rabbits dive into shelters when threatened, whereas hares will usually freeze or run away.

3) Hares give birth in an open hollow called a ‘form’ to precocial young (called leverets), precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth. Rabbits give birth in burrows, to young (called kittens) that are blind and helpless, needing a few days before they become mobile and more independent (i.e. altricial).

These guidelines work for rabbits and hares in Europe, where only a couple of species of lagomorphs (the group to which Rabbits and Hares belong) occur. In the rest of the world, however, there are lagomorphs that can’t be clearly defined as either being a rabbit or a hare. The Riverine Rabbit is one of these. Unlike a rabbit, it has long ears, and unlike a hare, it gives birth to helpless kittens in an underground burrow dug by the female. In body build, it is not lanky like hares, having fairly short hind legs, and when fleeing it has a rather scurrying gait. There are a few other such rabbit-hares in the world. These are sometimes considered ‘relic species’ – evolutionary holdovers, similar to the early ancestors of both hares and rabbits, before they became distinct from each other.

Bunolagus monticularis — Riverine Rabbit — MammalMAPped by Trevor Hardaker in Sanbona Wildlife Reserve

The Riverine Rabbit is beautiful. It has a reddish brown coat with grey grizzling on its back and creamy yellow fur on its belly. Its eyes are outlined in white, and there are white lines along the front edges of its ears too. Most characteristically, it has a prominent black stripe along each cheek. The Riverine Rabbit is one of the most distinctively marked of all rabbits or hares. It is only trumped by the two southeast Asian species of Striped Rabbit comprising the genus Nesolagus (both extremely rare and threatened).

Sumatran Striped Rabbit

Riverine Rabbits are fairly small, weighing in at 1.4-1.9 kg. Females are a bit heavier than males. These little rabbits are nocturnal. They come out at night to feed on grass – when it’s available (only after good rains) – or the foliage of saltbush, buchu, honey thorn or ink bush shrubs. During the day, they rest in forms (scraped-out hollows) under bushes, keeping cool as the semi-desert heats up.

Like other rabbits, they eat their own droppings. And, did you know that they produce two different kinds of droppings? At night, they produce hard droppings, which they don’t eat. But he ones they produce during the day are soft, and these are the ones they eat. These droppings are rich in the minerals calcium and phosphorus, and B-vitamins. These vitamins are produced by bacteria that live in the rabbit’s hind-gut, a kind of mutually-beneficial symbiosis.

Riverine Rabbit distribution based on MammalMAP data – http://vmus.adu.org.za/

The Riverine Rabbit has a very localized distribution. It only occurs in the valleys of a number of non-perennial rivers in the Karoo region of South Africa, within the Renosterveld and Succulent Karoo vegetation biomes. The rivers in the Karoo only flow periodically, but when they do, they sometimes overflow their banks along broad alluvial plains, where they deposit fertile silty soil.There was an attempt to turn these fertile river valleys of the Karoo into farmland and unfortunately about 60% of this riverine habitat has been destroyed – converted into wheat fields. But this region is not really viable for crop agriculture, it is just too dry; plenty of irrigation is needed and in this forbidding area it is not practical.

The rabbits of course can’t easily find new homes. They are dependent on the dense shrubs that grow along the rivers – on the open plains they will be too exposed, and the soil is too rocky for them to dig their burrows in. They can only live along those narrow, densely vegetated strips with soft, silty soils – only one or two hundred meters wide – that fringe the rivers.

Even in areas where the river valleys haven’t yet been turned into farmland, the rabbits suffer from other threats. People still cut down bushes and trees along the river for firewood, and many areas are overgrazed by sheep and other livestock. This causes soil erosion with a further loss of food and shelter plants. Rabbits are sometimes hunted with dogs – or caught by stray dogs. They are also caught in traps set for small game or for predators. Also, some of the rivers have been dammed, causing reduced flow of water in the lower reaches, leading to die-off of the riverine vegetation. And fences, which the rabbits can’t easily navigate, also cause problems for gene flow among rabbit populations.

Although the saying goes “breeding like rabbits”, Riverine Rabbits don’t! In fact, a doe usually only gives birth to 1 or 2 young per year. This is a typical life history strategy of a species with limited available habitat/resources. Many species of mammals or birds that live on islands, where resources are also limited, are the same. They only have a few young at a time and breed infrequently. But, when threats from outside, like humans, enter their habitat it makes these species extremely vulnerable.

All these various threats have caused a serious decline in Riverine Rabbit numbers. Estimates suggest that originally its habitat could have supported about 1 500 individuals, but now its population has shrunk to perhaps only 500 or so individuals in the wild! This makes it one of the 50 rarest mammal species in the world (that we know of)!

Anysberg Nature Reserve — Western Cape Province

Fortunately, there have been projects over the past decade or two to inform farmers of this unique mammal. Several farms have been declared ‘conservancies’, with the farmers pledging to protect riverine vegetation, or actively working to re-vegetate denuded riverbanks, and to reduce other threats like overgrazing or hunting. The main project to coordinate all conservation efforts, is the Drylands Conservation Project of the Endangered Wildlife Trust. The main thrust is to promote a sense of ‘stewardship’ in land owners on whose property these rabbits occur. These little mammals are ecologically valuable, and are indicators of a healthy environment.

The rabbits themselves have proved to be resilient, and recently a few new populations have been discovered, such as at Anysberg Nature Reserve in 2014, and the Baviaanskloof in 2019. We still have much to learn about Riverine Rabbits. Without adequate knowledge, our conservation efforts are hamstrung. But new technology is helping, like camera traps that are being used to discover new populations and monitor existing ones. You can help too! By uploading any photos you might have to MammalMAP at http://vmus.adu.org.za/

Caught on camera trap! MammalMAP record by Jeremy Bolton
Biodiversity/BirdPix/Citizen Science/Karoo/LepiMAP/MammalMAP/News/OdonataMAP/Site report/Trip report/Virtual Museum

The BDI visits Roam Private Game Reserve

Posted on by Les Underhill

Five years ago, the Post family bought a 5000 ha property in the Karoo which had been used for hunting, turned it into a biodiversity conservation area, and renamed it Roam Private Game Reserve. The old hunters’ accommodation has been transformed into a Luxury Safari Lodge that resonates with the hospitality and peacefulness of the Karoo.

To satisfy the demands of hunters, what had originally been a sheep farm had been overstocked with large target animals. Veld degradation had been the result. This is steadily being repaired. Species that do not belong in the Karoo have gradually been removed. The overall population of large mammals has been reduced to levels that are sustainable.

The quarter degree grid cell into which Roam Private Game Reserve falls is 3222CD, south of the N1 between Laingsburg and Beaufort West, and west of the N12 on its way south to Meiringspoort, and north of the Groot Swartberg range of mountains that forms the southern boundary of the Great Karoo. It is a particularly inaccessible grid cell for citizen scientists. There is bird atlas data for only three of the nine pentads in the grid cell. Prior to our visit, there was only a handful of records in the Virtual Museum.

For most people, the caricature of the Karoo is a flat landscape dotted with “koppies” (i.e. hills). This is a rugged part of the Karoo, with deep tree-lined valleys giving rise to natural springs, that continue to flow even in the current deep drought. This is water that has probably not seen the light of day for centuries. It comes from geological formations far underground. This critical source of water is likely to be most at risk from fracking.

Roam Private Game Reserve would be a fabulous place to search for dragonflies and damselflies in the warm months of the year. OdonataMAP contains no records at all for this grid cell. Nor does either LacewingMAP or ScorpionMAP, and the Karoo is a known hotspot for these groups of species.

This collage shows the 26 records we added to the Virtual Museum during our short visit to Roam. Being deep in winter, these were mostly for BirdPix. However, these are the first records in the Virtual Museum for this gridcell for BirdPix, so they are especially valuable.

Fairy Flycatcher Stenostira scita

The managers on the reserve are Abigail and Donovan de Swardt. Soon after we arrived, Donovan loaded us onto the game-viewing vehicle and showed us some of the highlights. He had a stake-out where he regularly finds Fairy Flycatchers, but with us it didn’t deliver. Instead, the Fairy Flycatcher appeared the next morning in one of the shrubs at the lodge. This is probably the highlight record of the visit. Here is the record in the Virtual Museum: http://vmus.adu.org.za/?vm=BirdPix-88594.

This is the first record of a moth from the grid cell and is now in LepiMAP (http://vmus.adu.org.za/?vm=LepiMAP-691619). It has been identified by Quartus Grobler as belonging to the genus Agrotis. Some of the members of this genus are one of crop agriculture’s most notorious pests, the cutworms.

There are 12 giraffes, with three having been born in the nature reserve era. They mostly spend their time in the riverine trees along the drainage lines, but regularly visit the waterhole at the lodge. This photo was taken by Abigail de Swardt.

We are grateful to Denis Post for enabling us to visit Roam Private Game Reserve, and Abigail and Donovan de Swardt for their hospitality and enthusiasm.

With enthusiasm, the BDI is hoping that the Roam Private Game Reserve will become an outstanding site for student research projects. It has massive potential. Watch this space.

BDInsight/Biodiversity/Bird ringing/Citizen Science/News/Virtual Museum

BDInsight – August 2019

Posted on by Megan Loftie-Eaton

August has flown by! And soon the migrant birds will arrive back in South Africa. We look forward to welcoming them back in the southern hemisphere. August has also been a busy month for the BDI, including adventures to the Karoo and Europe, preparing for the “return of the dragons”, and testing out PanGoPod Alpha in the field.

Upcoming Event

21 September 2019: The Return of The Dragons — OdonataMAP data drive for the upcoming dragonfly and damselfly season

OdonataMAP is a Virtual Museum project aiming to: (1) map the current distributions of the Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) occurring in Africa; and (2) to serve as a repository of all existing distribution data for this group of important insects. To participate in OdonataMAP all you need to do is register as an observer through the Virtual Museum website. Close-up photographs of dragonflies or damselflies, along with date and locality information, including geographic coordinates are submitted to the VM in the data upload section. The Virtual Museum allows you to upload a maximum of three photos per record (one species = one record). Please take the GPS coordinates as accurately as possible; alternatively you can also find your position on the Google Map available in the upload page, but this may be difficult if you photographed your dragonfly/damselfly in an area with no good landmarks.

Student Research Projects

A major expansion of the BDI website was undertaken in August. The information about the Research Projects for students is now live. Please go and have a look at http://thebdi.org/research-training/students-research-themes/

Our main research project themes are ecology, environmental sociology, ecological economics, and historical ecology. These themes overlap to a large degree, and our research projects often involve cross-disciplinary research involving several themes.

Although applications from anyone, anywhere in the world, will be considered, we anticipate most of our students will be from universities in Europe. Many universities encourage their students to undertake a project abroad, and the academic year in which this opportunity is permitted varies a lot. The duration of the project also varies, between weeks and months. The role of the BDI is to provide accommodation and supervision. We are geared up to undertake the formal contractual obligations needed by the sending university.

Exciting News from the Karoo

A critical ingredient for the BDI’s goal of enabling students to undertake projects in Africa is the provision of comfortable accommodation. So, in partnership with the Karoo Gariep Nature Reserve, we are transforming an old building at the New Holme Guest Farm into an awesome living area. We are creating five double-rooms, a kitchen area and a study area. We aim to turn this into a high quality research centre.

Construction underway at New Holme Guest Farm

Over the busy summer period, these rooms will be used by the New Holme Guest Farm for travelers on their way between Gauteng and Cape Town. During the tourism off-season, the accommodation will be used by the BDI. There is a large array of fascinating student research projects on the Karoo Gariep Nature Reserve. Renovations are proceeding at speed, and the accommodation will be available at New Holme Guest Farm in the upcoming December-January period (2019/20).

From Across The Pond

Europe-Africa-Asia

This photo was taken at the European Ornithologists’ Union’s 12th Conference held at the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania during August. On the left, Professor Przemyslaw Busse represents Europe, Les Underhill represents Africa and, on the right, Professor Sergej Soloviev represents Asia! Professor Busse, University of Gdansk, started “Operation Baltic” in the early 1960s. Somehow, he got it right to get permission to start a bird ringing programme at sites along the coast of the Baltic Sea. This was a military zone in the era of communist rule of Poland. Here is a PowerPoint presentation made by Professor Busse for the 55th anniversary of Operation Baltic

Two things make Operation Baltic special: (1) the birds mistnetted here are on migration to northwestern Europe; (2) the methods have been tightly standardized from the start. So Operation Baltic has generated one of the best datasets on the planet to measure changes in the timing of migration in recent decades. Professor Magda Remisiewicz is now leader of Operation Baltic, incorporated into the Bird Migration Research Station at the University of Gdansk. Magda and Les presented a paper at the EOU conference on how the timing of the migration of Willow Warblers along the Baltic Sea coast has changed in the past four decades. Professor Busse has made a huge contribution to ornithology.

Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus – photo by Gregg Darling

In a long story covering decades with many twists and turns, Professor Soloviev has kept biology alive at the Dostoevsky Omsk State University, Omsk, Russia. There is no biology department at this university; he is an ornithologist in the Department of Chemistry! Omsk is a largely industrial city, more than 2000 km east of Moscow, east of the Urals, and far into Asia. The Trans-Siberian Railway passes through Omsk. Professor Soloviev has set up a field research station here. From a South African perspective, what makes Professor Soloviev’s research on birds so interesting and important is that his research station is the only one in this huge area in which most of the migrant warblers breed.

Sergej and Les are co-authors on a new research paper, with Magda as lead author. The paper is about the primary moult in the Common Whitethroat. The whitethroats that breed in Poland and migrate to West Africa produce new wing feathers before they migrate. Those that breed around Omsk, and migrate to South Africa, do the opposite. They migrate first, and then moult in South Africa. Moult, along with breeding and migration, are the energetically challenging components of the annual cycle of whitethroats. The paper develops our understanding of the varying strategies that this species adopts in different parts of its range to get through the year.

Common Whitethroat Sylvia communis – photo by Andreas Trepte

Here is the full reference to the paper:

Remisiewicz M, Bernitz Z, Bernitz H, Burman MS, Raijmakers JMH, Raijmakers JH, Underhill LG, Rostkowska A, Barshep Y, Soloviov SA, Siwek I in press. Contrasting strategies for wing moult and pre-migratory fuelling in medium- and long-distance migrant populations of Common Whitethroat Sylvia communis. Ibis. You can read the abstract here

PanGoPod Alpha

PanGoPod Alpha has housed its first students in the field at the wonderful Fynbos Estate and it has been a great success. PanGoPods are off-grid eco-friendly mobile homes. They are bigger than a caravan but smaller than a Park Home. This sort of housing is common in the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where they are called Tiny Homes.

Want to find out how you can get your hands on your very own PanGoPod? All you need to do is contact us at director@thebdi.org. We’ll start the process of engaging with you about what you need and want from a PanGoPod.

Bird ringing

Seychelles bird longevities

Posted on by Dieter Oschadleus
Seychelles Magpie Robin

During August 2019 bird ringing training courses were held on Aride and on Cousin Islands in the Seychelles. Some interesting longevity records were obtained.

Madagascar Turtle Dove

A Madagascar Turtle Dove was recaptured on Cousin Island on 19 August 2019. This individual had been ringed in the same area 7 years 11 months previously. This dove has a subspecies in Madagascar and one in the Seychelles, but these two subspecies interbreed in the Seychelles. No longevity records appear to have been published for any forms of this turtle dove, making this the oldest known record for the species.

Madagascar Turtle Dove
Madagascar Turtle Dove

 

Seychelles Fody

A Seychelles Fody was recaptured on Aride Island on 15 August 2019. It had been ringed as a juvenile on the same island nearly 14 years previously (ring FA41377)! While the oldest fody is 16 years, this is the oldest fody recorded on Aride.

Seychelles Fody
Seychelles Fody with pale bill

 

Seychelles Magpie Robin

A Seychelles Magpie Robin (4A51905) was recaptured about 9 years after it fledged. Currently the oldest Seychelles Magpie Robin in the SAFRING database is 12 years 3 months (ring 4A38425). However, there are many outstanding magpie-robin records, so there could be an even older bird.

Seychelles Magpie Robin
Seychelles Magpie Robin on bird table

 

Would you like to ring birds in the Seychelles? Book a trip with African Ringing Expeditions!

Biodiversity/Citizen Science/Citizen scientist profile/Data and statistics/LepiMAP/MammalMAP/News/OdonataMAP

Swaziland Superwoman!…BDI interviews conservation scientist Kate Braun

Posted on by Megan Loftie-Eaton

I was employed as Ecologist/Research Officer by the Swaziland National Trust Commission (now Eswatini National Trust Commission), the parastatal organisation responsible for the conservation of Eswatini’s cultural and natural resources, from 1986 to 1995. My responsibilities were the research programmes and activities for guiding management of the ENTC’s nature reserves, and to provide information for conservation of the country’s biodiversity. Part of the work that I did was to begin compiling information on the flora and fauna found within the ENTC reserves.

Kate Braun in her natural habitat – Mlawula Nature Reserve

In terms of biodiversity field work, my initial focus was on the grasses, as little information was available at that stage, and this extended to general plant collection, usually focusing on groups of plants which had not been well investigated. At this stage, very little information was digitized, and, in collaboration with the Pretoria Herbarium, I put together the Flora Database for Eswatini, and in the early to mid ’90s created the ENTC website, which made this information available to the public.

After 1995, I continued to work for ENTC on a part time basis as a consultant, maintaining the website, and taking photos for them for publicity purposes. This overlapped with my interest in photography, and when digital cameras became available, I focused on taking photos of the flora for the database/website, rather than collecting specimens.

One of the biggest problems I encountered when trying to compile biodiversity information was the difficulty in finding resources to try and identify plants and animals. Hard copy publications were available, but a small organisation like the ENTC was in no position to budget for the purchase of a broad selection of books and journals. At that stage, online resources were very limited.

In the process of taking photos of the flora, I started getting photos of butterflies and other invertebrates as well. With regard to butterflies and moths, Neville Duke and Chuck Saunders did a lot of collecting in the country, but the only information I had available was hand written lists of species recorded from Malolotja and Mlawula Nature Reserves, which gave me a starting point of 222 species of butterflies recorded in Eswatini.

In 2008, I discovered the UCT-ADU Virtual Museum as a means of getting photos identified, and over then next few years, I was able to get photos of a number of species of butterflies. The Virtual Museum provided the resources for me to be able to compile an updated illustrated checklist of the butterflies including about 280 species: Eswatini Butterflies Checklist, August 2013

Kate’s first butterfly photo – a Gaudy Commodore Precis octavia sesamus – Malolotja Nature Reserve

As the Virtual Museum grew, I expanded my focus, including other groups of fauna where the expertise was available for identifications. From around 2011, my focus included the dragonflies and damselflies. Initial information on species possibly occurring in Swaziland was available from Dragonflies and Damselflies of South Africa by Michael J. Samways, and I found a southern African checklist online, published by the Department of Entomology & Arachnology of the Durban Natural Science Museum. Combining this with the photo records I was able to obtain, and by using the resources of the Virtual Museum, I was able to put together a provisional checklist of Eswatini’s Odonata in 2012. This has been upgraded and additional information included, and as at 2018, includes 82 species: Eswatini Odonata Checklist, 2018

In 2016, one of my contracts was the biodiversity information component of the SNPAS project (Strengthening National Protected Areas Systems Project). My task was to compile a data set of all available existing records of flora and fauna recorded in Eswatini. I have been working on making this information available via the ENTC website, and am developing the Biodiversity Explorer component of the website to make this information more accessible to non-scientists.

In early 2017, I started focusing on getting photos of the moths, and this has coincided with more and more information being available online to assist with identifications, as well as updates of the taxonomy of various groups of moths. Prior to this, existing available information included a list of about 800 species of moths. Since then, I have been able to obtain some of the record information for previous collections, in particular, those collected by Neville Duke in the 1980’s/90’s, but as most of his collection, housed in the Ditsong Museum, has not yet been digitized, there is still a huge amount of information not yet easily available.

Over the last couple of years, in collaboration with various people, I have been able to put together a provisional checklist, which currently includes over 1300 species. Much work is still needed on this, and many photos still require identifications, so it is expected that the checklist will have many additions — Eswatini Provisional Moths Checklist — Special thanks go to Quartus Grobler for all the time and effort he has put into helping with identification of moth photos.

In collaboration with Mervyn Mansell, I am also currently working on a similar illustrated checklist for the Neuroptera, and this should be available soon. I am currently working with the ENTC on an upgrade of the website, and once we have the new format in place, I will be upgrading and updating the biodiversity information available on the website. So much of what I have been able to put together has been dependent on collaboration with organisations and individuals, both scientists and “citizen scientists”. In spite of all the photos I’ve already taken, I am still getting records of new species for Eswatini, an indication of how much work is still to be done.

A beautiful lacewing from Eswatini – Italochrysa zulu

What are you still hoping to achieve? This might be in terms of species, coverage, targets …

In Eswatini, most of the vertebrate species of fauna found in the country have been documented, but this doesn’t apply to many groups of invertebrates. There will still be many years of work to document this diversity, and I hope to continue to collaborate with organisations such as the Animal Demography Unit to continue to further our knowledge of Eswatini’s fauna and flora, and to make this information available and accessible.

What do you see as the role which citizen science plays in biodiversity conservation? What is the link?

I believe that citizen science is an invaluable approach for documenting biodiversity.  Current technology allows for more and more people to be directly involved, making it possible to obtain a huge amount of information on species presence and distributions, far more than could be obtained by scientists without this help. Citizen science also raises awareness of the richness of our biodiversity, and can only help in the long term conservation of our flora and fauna.

Plains Zebra Equus quagga – MammalMAPped by Kate in Malolotja Nature Reserve
Biodiversity/Bird ringing/Citizen Science/Data and statistics/News

Chicks of the Wetlands – White-Winged Flufftails

Posted on by Willem van der Merwe

What you see here is something very few people have ever seen in the wild.  I haven’t seen any myself, yet.  All I’ve seen is a sad little stuffed specimen in the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History. These are White-winged Flufftails Sarothrura ayresi. They are one of the rarest and most threatened birds in South Africa, and Africa. The species is only known to breed in Ethiopia and South Africa, and it was only confirmed as breeding in South Africa in the past year or so, using camera traps which recorded a female with three chicks!  Everywhere that they occur, they face severe threats – the destruction, alteration and degradation of their wetland habitats. It is estimated that as few as 250 individuals of this species may exist in the entire world!

So what are flufftails, exactly?  Their English common names refer to the rather fluffy feathers of their short tails. In Afrikaans they are known as ‘vleikuikens’ or ‘chicks of the marshes/wetlands’. The White-winged Flufftail is the smallest species, measuring up to 15 cm in total length, and weighing just about 30 g. Flufftails only occur in Africa and Madagascar. They are elusive birds, frequenting dense vegetation such as wetlands, rank grasses and forest edges. All the flufftails look quite similar, with dark feathers on their dumpy bodies, and often brighter reddish-brown feathers on their heads, breasts and/or tails. Most of them also have light spotting or streaking.  Females are typically duller in colour than males. Their diet consists of leaves and seeds of marsh plants as well as small aquatic invertebrate critters, tiny fish and tadpoles. They were once considered members of the Rallidae Family (rails, crakes, coots, etc.), because of their similarity to crakes, but today they are grouped into their own genetically distinct family, the Sarothruridae. Flufftails are often only recorded and identified by their calls. Most species have far-carrying, hooting, almost ghost-like calls, that sound very “deep”, especially coming from such small birds. Only recently have the calls of White-winged Flufftails been recorded, including both clicking sounds as well as a low-frequency call.

White-winged Flufftail (Sarothrura ayresi) – photo by Sergey Dereliev

The White-winged Flufftail has been observed only a handful of times. When approached, these birds will typically creep into dense vegetation and then sit tight. Flufftails in general can be recognized when flushed by their tiny size, dark colour and rather weak flight. That helps you say that what you flushed was a flufftail, but not which flufftail species it was, since they all look rather similar and a short glimpse of a bird flying away from you before diving into dense cover hardly allows you a detailed inspection. But in the case of the White-winged Flufftail, if you flush it, you know for sure what it is, because it is the only flufftail species that has the white secondary flight feathers, showing up as a clearly visible white panel in its wings as it flies.

Even so, White-winged Flufftails are very hard to ever see. The principal breeding site of White-winged Flufftails is Berga in Ethiopia, a patch of wetland that is flooded during the rainy season, making excellent living conditions for the flufftails: rather short but dense cover of grasses and sedges, and shallow waters. Unfortunately, this wetland region is only a few square km in extent and is still being encroached by ever-growing numbers of cattle and people. Public awareness campaigns are in effect.  A few more wetlands in Ethiopia may sustain small breeding populations, but this hasn’t been confirmed.  In South Africa, the main region where White-winged Flufftails occur, is one of high-altitude perennial marshes and seepages near the headwaters of rivers, near Dullstroom, Middelpunt, and Wakkerstroom. Even here there is only about 3.9 square km of suitable habitat in total. This means that globally, there is only 10 square km of suitable habitat where these flufftails live and breed!

Middelpunt Wetland – photo by Morné Fourie

The white wing patches of these flufftails seem to be an important visual feature, used in a flapping display between a breeding male and female. It’s strange that these flufftails have been found in South Africa and Ethiopia, but nowhere in between (apart from a tiny number of records for Zimbabwe, which is next door to South Africa). Still, the Ethiopian birds look just like the ones in South Africa. Are they the same species? Are they different subspecies forming isolated populations? Or are they in fact just one population – with the birds from Ethiopia migrating to South Africa and back? For a while it was thought that they were migrants, since the species was known to breed in Ethiopia but not in South Africa.  But now that the birds are known to breed in South Africa, it may be that the two populations are indeed distinct and resident. But genetic analysis shows that the Ethiopian and South African birds are indeed very much alike, certainly the same species, and perhaps still connected by some kind of migration. It is likely that the species used to be much more abundant and widespread, but has dwindled to the point where all the linking populations between South Africa and Ethiopia have now disappeared, leaving those two widely separated populations. It would be interesting if migration can be proved, since flufftails hardly seem to be strong fliers, and the distance between their haunts in South Africa and Ethiopia is over 4000 km.

So where does that leave our little flufftails? At present, they are extremely endangered; even if their remaining habitat can be totally protected and safeguarded, it would be difficult to increase the flufftail population, since there are so few individuals left. A small population is always vulnerable. Not enough individuals means not much genetic variation, leaving them susceptible to diseases. One solution would be to reclaim certain regions, converting farmland, tree or sugarcane plantations back to their original marshland state.  This would be a rather big project, but not impossible. A few additional few square kilometres might do wonders for White-winged Flufftails!

Another idea that is being considered, is captive breeding of White-winged Flufftails. The only problem is, we don’t know much about how flufftails breed at all! A solution to this conundrum might be to breed and raise the much more common Red-breasted Flufftails in captivity to study and document the specific needs of flufftails. This is a risky proposition but it might work. Whatever the case, White-winged Flufftails are charming and mysterious little birds that need our protection.

White-winged Flufftail – photo by Sergey Dereliev
Biodiversity/Citizen Science/Citizen scientist profile/Data and statistics/LepiMAP/News/Virtual Museum

Biodiversity Superhero… BDI interviews citizen scientist Owolabi Bibitayo Ayobami

Posted on by Megan Loftie-Eaton

Owolabi Bibitayo Ayobami is a lecturer at the Department of Wildlife and Ecotourism Management at Osun State University in Osogbo, Nigeria. He is also busy with his PhD, focusing on vulture conservation in the southwestern state of Nigeria, through the Federal University of Technology Akure. Owolabi is passionate about wildlife conservation, especially that of birds.

Owolabi writes, “I was born into a family with an agricultural background, both my parents have a passion for agriculture. My mom was my Agricultural Science teacher during my secondary school days. I was only introduced to ornithology in 2013, but since then I have been an advocate for bird conservation! I absolutely love birds. Without birds, our chances of survival as humans are slim, we all need to do our part to keep the environment healthy for birds, ourselves as well as all other creatures that we share the planet with. Birds are important environmental indicators, they help us to quantify how healthy and balanced our environment are.”

How did you become a citizen scientist? What was the catalyst that got you going?

Like I mentioned earlier, in 2013 I was privileged to attend a seminar during my master’s degree programme and I found myself fascinated by the presentation on birds. That day my heart was so captured for biodiversity conservation. I went to meet the presenter (Dr Okosodo) and told him I want to work on birds for my Masters project. He gave me my first pair of binoculars and introduced me to the amazing world of citizen science. I did not know much about biodiversity prior to that seminar, I was quite ignorant of the beautiful flora and fauna that nature has bestowed on us.

I then took it upon myself to sensitize people to nature, through write-ups, social media posts, photos and any other mediums I could find in order to spread the gospel of nature conservation.

Red-billed Helmetshrike Prionops caniceps – photo by Dubi Shapiro

The catalysts that got me going happened in phases; first, the the feedback I received from people through emails and other means, of their eagerness to learn and know more about the environment and birds inspired me to go the extra mile as a citizen scientist. There is an indescribable joy when your efforts, to make life more meaningful and worthwhile, are noticed and appreciated. A friend once asked me, “I know butterflies to be colourful, but birds are either black or white. But the birds you have shown me are so diverse in colouration, do you paint them?” 🙂 I am glad that I can open people’s eyes to the wonderful world of birds. Another source of motivation for me, comes from senior colleagues in conservation who are at the forefront in helping to protect wildlife. They encourage me to keep up my own efforts.

Chestnut-breasted Nigrita Nigrita bicolor – photo by Owolabi

What has been the highlight for you?

There are too many highlights to mention!! Not a single day has gone by when I am out in the field with my camera and binoculars that I don’t discover something new and exciting. Each new discovery is wonderful to me. The more I discover, the more I want to know and the more I want to learn.

How has being a citizen scientist changed your view of the world?

Being a citizen scientist has helped me change my view of the world in various ways. I now feel that together we can make a difference to help the natural environment, if we choose to minimize the impact of various human activities. Collecting data and contributing to knowledge through the Nigerian Bird Atlas Project and the Virtual Museum really changed my views about the world in terms of species ranges, distributions and biodiversity conservation.

Dactyloceras bramarbas — LepiMAPed in Osogbo, Nigeria by Owolabi

What does the term “citizen scientist” mean to you?

Citizen scientists are a a group of people, either professionals or non-professionals, taking part in crowd-sourcing, data analysis, and data collection. The idea is like that of division of labour, distributing work or to break down huge tasks into understandable and manageable components that anyone can perform. Participation of non-professionals in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to research, actively undertaking and requiring thoughtful action. It is absolutely fantastic!

What are you still hoping to achieve? This might be in terms of species, coverage, targets …

Thank you for this question. It reminds me that there is still so much that I want to do! There are two things I hope to achieve. I want to publish a book on the birds of southwestern Nigeria, and a book on bats of southwestern Nigeria. I know this might be a huge task, but I know it is achievable. Embedded in these goals are so many other awesome things like new species to discover, distribution range maps to update, and more grid cells to cover for the Nigerian Bird Atlas. I also want to upload all my discoveries to the Virtual Museum, which will help to contribute to a rich database on Nigerian biodiversity.

What resources have been the most helpful? (And how can they be made better?)

The Virtual Museum has been the most helpful tool for me. But I think it would help and to give the website a bit of a ‘face lift’ to make it more attractive and user-friendly. The equipment and bird books provided by APLORI for the Nigerian Bird Atlas Project has been a great help. More donations of binoculars and books by the public or private organizations would be fantastic! It helps us to get more people into bird atlasing.

How do you react to the statement that “Being a citizen scientist is good for my health, both physical and mental!”?

The statement is 100% correct. I can’t imagine myself spending a whole day just sitting around discussing football, I will grow sick and tired of it. I love football of course, I am not against playing or watching it. Don’t get me wrong. You may even find it ironic that I am part of the staff football team at Osun State University. But what I am saying is that I have found a better way to keep the body and soul alive. Time spent in nature is always a healing experience. Walking about in nature is the best. It sets one’s mind at rest and gives one hope for the future. The splendour of nature’s majesty is indescribable and it works wonders! 🙂

What do you see as the role which citizen science plays in biodiversity conservation? What is the link?

Citizen science plays a key role in biodiversity conservation. It helps to spread the gospel of nature conservation and education. People around me now watch out for birds and other wildlife. They send me coordinates and photos of the critters they find. They all want to know what more they can do to help and contribute. Citizen science shows us that biodiversity conservation is a joint responsibility irrespective of your profession, gender, age, tribe, religion or political affiliations. Together we can achieve so much more! 🙂

Old Oyo National Park, Nigeria – Photo by Owolabi