A Rocha Kenya bird ringing data from Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Gede Ruins Forest, Kenya, 2019
Latest version published by A Rocha Kenya on Mar 1, 2019
Arabuko-Sokoke Forest is the largest and least disturbed coastal forest in East Africa and is home to a number of endemic and threatened bird species. The data presented here, 2,812 records, result from bird ringing activities carried out by A Rocha Kenya in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and the forest surrounding the Gede Ruins National Monument during either regular population monitoring work, targeted species studies or ad hoc captures between 1998 and 2015. The majority of captures were using mist nets with a handful of birds captured by hand or by Bal Chatri trap.
Data Records
The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 172 records. 1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.
- Event (core)
- Occurrence
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Downloads
Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:
| Data as a DwC-A file | download 172 records in English (38 KB) - Update frequency: unknown |
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| Metadata as an EML file | download in English (18 KB) |
| Metadata as an RTF file | download in English (14 KB) |
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Jackson C, Kirao L, Ochieng J, Baya A, Kinzer A (2019): A Rocha Kenya bird ringing data from Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Gede Ruins Forest, Kenya, 2019. v1.1. A Rocha Kenya. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://ipt.museums.or.ke/ipt/resource?r=asfring2019&v=1.1
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is A Rocha Kenya. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0 License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 9cabc8a4-884e-45ff-92c2-84d4c9c7d368. A Rocha Kenya publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Participant Node Managers Committee.
Keywords
birds; bird ringing; Arabuko-Sokoke Forest; Gede Ruins; Kilifi County
Contacts
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Geographic Coverage
Birds caught and ringed in Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Gede Ruins. Latitude of 3° 20’ S, Longitude 39° 50’ E
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-3.511, 39.791], North East [-3.194, 40.005] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
All birds caught and ringed were identified to species level.
| Species | Cercotrichas quadrivirgata (Reichenow, 1879) (Bearded Scrub-robin) |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1998-01-01 / 2015-01-01 |
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Project Data
On the north coast of Kenya lies the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF) and, once contiguous to ASF, the Gede Ruins National Monument forest. A forest locally, nationally and internationally recognised for its threatened forest landscape and unique biodiversity, ASF is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, considered by Birdlife as the second most important forest for threatened bird species conservation on mainland Africa and listed among the coastal forests of eastern Africa hotspot; because of many globally threatened and endemic species. The combined effect of climate-change and socio-economic change in the region poses a high risk to this forest and its biodiversity. Management of the forest has also to accommodate competing conservation demands. In particular, the elephant population is fenced within the forest to mitigate conflict with surrounding communities but has a direct impact on habitat and biodiversity. But, too little evidence currently exists to quantify biodiversity trends and status. Existing data are scattered and often ‘locked up’ in non-digitised or inaccessible digital form. These data could provide significant insights to inform ASF management decisions for biodiversity conservation and research if they were in an accessible format. BID funds would bring together A Rocha Kenya, the National Museum of Kenya (NMK), Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Animal Demography Unit of University of Cape Town (ADU), and the Arabuko- Sokoke Forest Guides Association (ASFGA) to access, assess, digitize, engage and improve the data for birds, mammals, invertebrates, reptiles and higher plants in order to inform the management of this important, unique and threatened forest ecosystem.
| Title | Application of biodiversity monitoring data to resolve competing conservation management priorities in an East African forest landscape |
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| Identifier | BID-AF2017-0274-NAC |
| Funding | Funding was received from a variety of sources over the years for the fieldwork. The final formatting and digitisation of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest data was funded by the European Union through the Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) project of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility: https://www.gbif.org/project/7EOzw96rgAoSKKUgYaoaCe/prioritizing-conservation-management-in-an-east-african-forest-landscape |
| Study Area Description | Arabuko-Sokoke Forest is the largest remaining, substantially sized patch of indigenous coastal forest in East Africa covering approximately 42,000 ha. It is located just south of Malindi at 03° 20’ S, 39° 50’ E bordering the main Kilifi to Malindi road between Tezo and Gede. It predominantly consists of three distinct forest habitat types: Cynometra Forest (c. 23,500 ha) is dominated by Cynometra webberi and Manilkara sulcata; it used also to be dominated by Brachylaena huilliensis but this has been largely selectively removed. Brachystegia Woodland (c. 7,700 ha) is dominated by Brachystegia spiciformis on white sandy soil. Mixed Forest (c.7,000 ha) occurs on the eastern side and has a diverse tree flora including Afzelia quanzensis (formerly dominant), Hymenaea verrucosa, Combretum schumannii and Manilkara sansibarensis and the cycad Encephalartos hildebrandtii. A series of seasonal wetlands run north-south along the length of the forest where the more clay-rich red soils underlie the permeable white sandy soil of the Brachystegia. The Gede Ruins are a 400 year old Arabic ruined city that have had mature forest grow up over them. The ruins were built on coral rag stone (fossil reef) and thus the forest is distinctive in its species composition and quite different to the nearby Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. The forest structure has substantially larger trees (15-25 m tall) than in Arabuko-Sokoke (10-15m), and is dominated by Combretum schumannii and Gyrocarpus americanus (Gerhardt & Steiner, 1990) Only 18 ha of forest remain, protected within the boundaries of the National Monument and as such is therefore only a tiny fragment of what once might have stretched to the coastline just over 4 km away. There are two wet seasons: April-June (long rains) and November-December (short rains). The other months will be usually hot and dry. Annual rainfall ranges from 1,000 mm in the east of Arabuko-Sokoke and Gede Ruins to 600 mm in the northwest. |
The personnel involved in the project:
Sampling Methods
The main data collection method was mist netting. A handful of birds, mainly nightjars and raptors, were caught by hand through dazzling the bird with a torch at night or using a Bal Chatri trap for raptors (Berger & Mueller, 1959). Mist nets were erected the day before the capture of birds was carried out and closed overnight. They were unfurled before dawn and left undisturbed from before the time the first bird started calling before the first net round was carried out c.40 mins after opening. Birds caught were ringed with a ring from the Ringing Scheme of East Africa and biometrics taken: maximum chord wing length, bill + skull, tarsus (taken from back of folded knee to folded foot), mass (measured to nearest 0.1 g). Moult of primaries and secondaries were recorded on most birds and body moult on a selection. The age of each bird was determined from past experience with the same or similar species and where uncertain recorded as ‘Unknown’. In most cases, the net was recorded in which each bird was caught and the time of the net round noted. The data were formatted according to the Darwin Core Standards by A Rocha Kenya before publishing through the IPT at the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi.
| Study Extent | Mist netting was carried out between 1998 and 2015 at a range of different locations in Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Gede Ruins either to study a particular species (e.g. Spotted Ground Thrush), as part of regular, constant effort monitoring of forest avian populations or for training and demonstration purposes. In most cases, nets were opened before dawn and patrolled for a minimum of four hours from dawn and the same protocol repeated for a second morning. Only in rare cases were nets run for just a single morning – or for more than two days. Again, in most cases, net sites were located in forest between 10 and 80 m from an existing trail and were angled according to what was taken to be the most likely angle to maximise capture. |
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| Quality Control | Careful assessment of the skills of ringers involved in the data collection was carried out. Data collected and entered to the A Rocha Kenya ringing database were checked for errors by CHWJ who also geolocated the ringing sites as he was involved in the majority of ringing events. |
Method step description:
- The main data collection method was mist netting. A handful of birds, mainly nightjars and raptors, were caught by hand through dazzling the bird with a torch at night or using a Bal Chatri trap for raptors (Berger & Mueller, 1959). Mist nets were erected the day before the capture of birds was carried out and closed overnight. They were unfurled before dawn and left undisturbed from before the time the first bird started calling before the first net round was carried out c.40 mins after opening. The birds caught were then ringed with rings unique to each bird and their biometrics entered in the A Rocha Kenya’s ringing database. From the ringing database, data was then entered into a spreadsheet according to Darwin Core format for sampling-event.
Bibliographic Citations
- Berger, D.D. & Mueller, H.C. 1959. The bal-chatri: a trap for the birds of prey. Bird-banding. 30(1):18–26. Gerhardt, M. & Steiner, M. 1990. A guide to the nature trail in Gedi. Gede Ruins National Monument: National Museums of Kenya.
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | http://ipt.museums.or.ke/ipt/resource?r=asfring2019 |
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