Throughout my biology bachelor I recieved the wonderful opportunity to take part in the research project BIOCULT. Together with students from Germany, Kenya and Austria I was a part of the bird ecology fieldwork team in 2022 supervised by Dr. Beate Apfelbeck.
Read more at https://biocult.net
The main aim of the study is to see how land degradation and land use is affecting bird density in Kaya kambe forest. Throughout our work we did monitoring in order to specify the diversity and abundance of birds, to figure out how land use change influences different forest fragments as well as to compare bird surveys which have been conducted earlier in the Kayas. The study is based on observations and surveys outdoors and information has been gathered with a variety of data collection methods. Such as counting bird observations between 7 and 11 am when birds are most active. For 10 minutes at each station we recorded all species as either seen or heard. Furthermore mist nets with a length of 6 meters and 12 meters with 4 panels have been laid out in different areas (indigenous forest, forest edge, plantations and agriculture land). After capturing and releasing the birds from the net every bird was ringed with individually numbered aluminum rings and we took biometric measurements such as wing size, body mass, body/tail malt etc.
Tobias Acksteiner 