Last day of catching…

As we have to leave for Mörbylånga already at 8 am tomorrow morning, today was the last day we participated in the catching here at Ottenby.

The last few days

The collecting at Ottenby is nearing the end, as we’re leaving for Gothenburg on Monday. We’ll go past Nordens Ark and the bird rehabilitation center outside Gothenburg next week, and then go to Jönköping to celebrate my sister’s 30th birthday.

We’ve reached 1474 birds searched, though this number includes some dead birds from the freezer. Robin Erithacus rubecula has rapidly become the most numerous bird searched, with a full 239 birds searched (16.03%), though only five have had lice. The dead birds have included some new species for Sweden, I believe, including some of the first Ricinus I’ve ever collected in Sweden, and several different species of lice from a Grey Heron Ardea cinerea.

Tonight, both Heidi and I will hold presentations about lice for the staff here. I will hold a general introduction to lice, talk about how lice spread and how birds combat lice, and then round off with my thesis defense talk, while Heidi will hold her talk about evolution of body size in parasites.

I did get my 300th bird species in Sweden though. I’ve got five new species for Sweden since I came back this summer, though only two were actually entirely new:

296 – Ruddy Shelduck Tadorna ferruginea (Getterön; had seen in Turkey before)
297 – Little Bunting Emberiza pusilla (Ottenby)
298 – Sardinian Warbler Sylvia melanocephala (Ottenby; had seen in Turkey before)
299 – Pallid Harrier Circus pallidus (Ottenby; had seen in Turkey before)
300 – Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis

Tomorrow we’ll probably have some sort of thank-you dinner, as we leave at around nine on Monday morning.

Today

Today we searched 50 live birds and about 20 dead ones from the freezer. We got lice only from two Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus and one Robin Erithacus rubecula, but some of the dead birds also gave some lice, including some from a Grey Heron Ardea cinerea, which is a new search-species for me. A full 33 of the birds searched today were Robins, and we also got the first Yellow-browed Warbler Phylloscopus inornatus in the catch, but it didn’t have any lice, of course. This is only the third Yellow-browed Warbler I ever searched, however, ad I don’t expect any lice until I’ve looked at about a hundred.

In the afternoon, we went biking, Heidi, Johanna, and I. We went all the way to Ventlinge to buy some pumpkins for tomorrow. Three will be carved and two will be eaten, with another four smaller pumpkins to serve as ears, nose, and a pipe. We went down to Grönhögen to swim in the too-cold water as well, as Heidi wanted to swim once every place she goes to here. It turned out to be too much slippery algae in the water, and too cold, so we waded around a bit, stood skipping rocks for a while, had tea, and then went home.

Tonight we’ll carve the pumpkins, so hopefully I’ll be able to show some pictures tomorrow.

In the interest of fairness…

1. As I posted a lot of pictures of Heidi collecting lice from the Mute Swan Cygnus olor the other day, it was decided that, in the interest of fairness, I should also post some pictures of me collecting lice, so it doesn’t look as if only Heidi is working here. This time, it is a Mallard Anas platyrhynchos we’re searching for lice.

The swan and general update

We’re now at 1114 birds of 71 different species, of which 95 individuals of 40 species have had at least one louse, though most of the lice from passerines are Menacanthus. Heidi, who is irreplaceable in the lab in Utah, has proven to be a formidable help here as well, but I suppose no one who knows her is really surprised.

Lice and birds

34 birds searched today, with 9 having lice!

Greater Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula – Quadraceps spp.
Dunlin Calidris alpina – Lunaceps schismatus and prob. Austromenopon sp.
2 Starlings Sturnus vulgaris – Sturnidoecus sturni and Brueelia nebulosa
3 Tree Sparrows Passer montanus – either Philopterus or Sturnidoecus (= Rostrinirmus)
2 House Sparrows Passer domesticus – same as Tree Sparrow.

International Vulture Awareness Day

Today I searched a total of 25 birds, and only one of these was a warbler, while ten were Robins Erithacus rubecula, and none had lice. It seems we’ve reached the end of the African migrants, though we did have both Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis and Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus in the catch.

More importantly, today is International Vulture Awareness Day, and we’re going to make a Vulture Cake to celebrate. I will make some pictures and post later, hopefully. It is all a bit unplanned, as we didn’t know about it until the day before yesterday, but we’ll make something of it, at least.

African White-backed Vulture /Gyps africanus/ in Tanzania. According to the IUCN data, this species has declined by 90% in West Africa, but is stable in parts of East Africa. It is listed as “Endangered”.

Why is there a Vulture Awareness Day? Well, vultures today face a number of challenges and, including the unrelated New World Vultures, a total of 12 of the world’s 23 species are listed as “Vulnerable” or worse in the IUCN redlist, and 15 are listed as “Decreasing” with only two listed as “Increasing”.

Apart from direct persecution, vultures in Africa are also hunted for traditional “medicinal” purposes, for meat (!), and for other purposes. They easily fall prey to poisoned carcasses planted by farmers in an attempt to kill mammalian predators, and Indian vultures have declined rapidly due to residues of diclofenac in dead livestock. According to Wikipedia, the decline in vultures is on the scale of 95-99.9% on the Indian subcontinent! They are also subject to avian influenza, and are directly threatened by changes in land use and improved disposal of rubbish and left overs from the meat industry in the third world.

The North American Turkey Vulture /Cathartes aura/ circling over the Grand Canyon. This common vulture is, fortunately, stable, and listed in IUCN as “Least Concern”.

Two days at Ottenby

30/8: 18 birds, no lice.
31/8: 11 birds, no lice.
Today it’s too windy to put up the nets… We’ll likely get very few birds, none of which will have lice. Heidi has the same problem on Gotland, apparently.

In addition, I walked into a pole yesterday evening and broke my cheek a bit, so I have trouble sleeping properly… Can only hope that everything will start getting better now. The first Robins Erithacus rubecula and Goldcrests Regulus regulus have already been caught, so I hope the large invasions will come soon.

29/8

Only 19 birds searched today, as it was too windy in the morning to open the nets. No new species for this trip today, but I forgot to mention that I searched three new species yesterday (none of which gave any lice):

Song Thrush Turdus philomelos
Robin Erithacus rubecula
Reed Bunting Emberiza schoeniclus

Today, however, I did manage to get lice from two hosts I haven’t got any lice from before on this trip:

Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus
Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca

Both gave a single Menacanthus, and one Tree Sparrow Passer montanus gave two nymphs of Philopterus/Sturnidoecus that I can’t identify to genus level in the field.

Supposedly the weather is going to be good for catching tomorrow, but it can change so quickly here by the sea…