21.5 C
Montserrat
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The beginning of June brought us a couple of welcome visitors from Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the leading project partner along with the Department of Environment. Mr Paul Masterton is the Chief Executive Director of Durrell and Mrs Tricia Kreitman, a Trustee of Durrell who serves on the board of Governors. Tricia is also a Trustee of the Balcome...
Over the last month, as promised, the project staff and forestry team have been spending plenty of time in the forest continuing our fight to save the Critically Endangered mountain chicken (remember, it’s a frog, not a chicken!). We have a new member of the team with us, Steffon, who is learning the ways of the forestry staff as...
Well for the last month I have been on holiday in England and our project Research Officer, ‘Lloydie’ and Field Assistant, ‘Blacka’ have been holding the fort in terms of fieldwork in Montserrat. July has seen us take on more rain which has pushed the frogs further out of the ghaut. Only 3 different individual frogs were seen in...
Things are really getting back into the swing of things as we prepare for the next release which is due at the end of this month. However, before we could concentrate on our new group of release frogs we had some guests visit Montserrat to take part in the third quarterly Project Steering Committee meeting. Dr. Reginald Thomas, the...
Not all that crawls on Montserrat is a mountain chicken... On a Friday night we went down to Woodlands Beach to watch the locals lay their eggs. The local turtles that is. There are four kinds of turtles that nest on the beaches of Montserrat; Leatherback, Green backed, Hawk's Bill and the Loggerhead. The nesting period is July to...
Yes!! The new volunteers are here! Full of energy and excitement, they are easily recognized by their wide eyes and pale skin (well, as this is written they have already turned from ghostly European to a nice golden Caribbean tan). Jenny is from Sweden and is more used to slightly larger animals. Before coming to Montserrat she was working as...
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...
I may be a little fella, but my heart is as big as Texas! If you've been to Montserrat, you know there is a concert going on in the trees from dusk till dawn. The majority of the choir members are tree frogs: Eleutherodactylus johnstonei. One reason for the tree frogs' persisting abundance is their ability to withstand the chytrid...
Yay, field day!!! Fourteen kids from the summer school came with us on an awesome trip to the forest to learn more about the mountain chicken project. The weather was at its best behaviour and the sunshine was pouring down at us as we all walked off into Spring ghaut. By the bounce in their steps I'm convinced there...

We Found That Girl

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The frogs released in January have been really shy since Blanca and I arrived. When going out to survey other areas for surviving wild mountain chicken we've been welcomed by the calling of handsome proud males. But in Sweetwater we were met by nothing but silence. Where were they? Night after night, week after week we trodded down the...