Preparing for the next phase of saving the mountain chicken
A new three year plan funded by the Darwin Initiative is now in place to aid the long-term survival of the mountain chickens on Montserrat. One of the first major events under this project ‘Enabling Montserrat to save the critically endangered mountain chicken’ is to prepare for and undertake the...
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...
For those of you who are not in Montserrat to roam the streets to view our handsome Mountain Chicken Poster then here it is! Mountain Chicken Project Poster (click the link to download)
The poster has been produced by the Mountain Chicken Project and will soon pepper Montserrat's public places in an effort to enhance the profile of the species...
Having got the first batch of frogs out and into the forest there was little time to relax as it was soon time to get ready the final group... last but not least. Preparations were smooth as the team new exactly what to do from the night before. The last of the mountain chickens left in the facility were...
Most of the team is here now with the arrival of Gerardo Garcia (head of the captive-breeding programme) yesterday evening and now Ben Baker from Chester so the cavalry has arrived. The team has been busy making the final preparations for the arrival of the mountain chickens with checking the holding facilities where the frogs will be housed for...
So given that we now have some new frogs complete with radio-transmitters running around the island, it’s now time for the radiotracking to begin. The core team Sarah-Louise, Blacka and Lloydie are all wonderfully proficient at this having had lots of experience, but for us the new volunteers (Emma & Heléna) there is a steep learning curve to be...
Driving through Brades at about 6.30pm we could already see Montserratians gearing up for a night of revelry for Valentine’s day, many dressed to impress in red. We on the other hand (in scruffy field clothes) were gearing up for our own action-packed evening at the release site…
Tonight was the night to start swabbing all radio tracked frogs. This...
It was a tense day yesterday. We knew the mountain chickens due for the next release were in the air winging their way to Montserrat but what were we going to find out once we opened those boxes?? We were all very excited when we go the call to say they had landed and Jervaine and Big Lloyd from...
We’ve been radio tracking for over a month now, so have decided to try and track at different times of night / early morning in case different frogs move around more at different times. So now we are larks as well as owls and coming up with some interesting finds…
We did our first late night search, going out at...