In a previous post you saw the process we went through to mark out the mountain chicken release site and construct our trial ponds. This update explores the next step, increasing the temperature of the environment!
One thing we must do before we can successfully reintroduce the mountain chicken back to Montserrat, is to find a way in which we...
A collaborative effort to save the mountain chicken frog has been in effect between the islands of Montserrat and Dominica for many years, but our partnership was recently strengthened when Montserratian primary field assistant ‘Blacka’ came to share his fieldwork skills and experience with the team in Dominica.
We decided to concentrate our search efforts in places that were previously...
I have some really exciting news to share with you today… Last weekend, we were out in the forest doing our regular tree frog catching and swabbing to monitor the presence of chytrid fungus. We had just started on the hike back to the car, after spending a few hours looking for tiny tree frogs hiding in the dry...
So tonight it was time to give the release frogs a break and go and carry out transect surveys on one of the sites that surviving wild mountain chickens can be found called Fairy Walk
Fairy Walk is one of the sites that has been regularly monitored for mountain chickens since 1998, since well before the deadly chytrid fungus arrived...
What could be more important than engaging young children in the wonderfully wild world around them, opening their eyes to new careers, opportunities and even dreams!? Well this was exactly how we started our week on the project and it was fantastic!
We visited the 6th grade class at St. Augustines Primary School for an afternoon filled with activities especially...
Yesterday was the first day of the Mountain Chicken Recovery Plan workshop and the aim was to update everyone attending on all work conducted on the mountain chicken over the past 16 years. After five informative presentations participants were asked to write their own ideal vision of what state the mountain chicken species should be in the future. The...
We are all back into the forest to check on the newly released frogs, another big team effort. Gerardo and Javier were downloading data from the Songmeters, hoping for the recording of the mountain chickens calls, then checking out the ghaut visually for frogs. Blacka, Jenny, Ben and I were radio-tracking the frogs, our aim for tonight was to...
If a Mountain Chicken calls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
One of our main tools for finding surviving frogs, both released and native ones is the sound of the males' calling. They perch themselves on a rock to bellow out their barks and the sound travels far across...
My name is Laura and I have recently arrived in Montserrat to join the Mountain Chicken team here. I had the pleasure of seeing a mountain chicken on my first trip to Montserrat last year, and couldn’t believe how big they are. Especially when I was told that the frog I considered to be a giant was just a...
December has been an exciting month for the project! Not only has Santa been doing his rounds, we've been going from strength to strength in prepping for the return of the Mountain Chicken to Montserrat next year!
Now i must admit, I was a little disappointed not waking up to a myriad of mountain chickens calling on Christmas day (it...