Volunteers and scientists have completed South Africa’s first census of the rare spotted ground thrush, surveying the KZN coast over five days.

The Spotted Ground Thrush Project took place from July 19 to 23, co-ordinated by The Lionheart Experience and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

The project hoped to generate new data on the bird’s winter migration patterns, population status and distribution across the province.

Dr Jonah Gula, a postdoctoral researcher at UKZN, said that despite some wet weather, the census was a huge success.

“There were some areas that we did not manage to get participants to survey, but we covered most of the wintering range of the species,” said Gula.

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Seventy-one volunteers surveyed for more than 140 hours, counting 208 spotted ground thrushes.

The conservation study covered 58 areas across the KZN coastline, from Port Edward to St Lucia, including Zimbali, Palm Lakes, Seaward, Dunkirk, Brettenwood and Elaleni estates.

BirdLife South Africa and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimate that only 600 to 1 500 ground thrushes remain in the country.

However, Gula believes there are more of these rare, ground-dwelling birds in the surveyed areas.

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“Using several sites where we previously colour-ringed ground thrushes, we estimated a very rough detection rate by seeing how many of these marked individuals were observed by participants,” he said.

An average of 31% of colour-ringed thrushes were observed at these sites combined.

“We definitely need more robust data, as it seems likely that we may only be detecting as little as one-third of the thrush population,” said Gula.

“This doesn’t include the possibility of some birds remaining in the Eastern Cape, where a portion of the KZN population migrates to breed in summer.”

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Gula noted that the first survey is merely a snapshot of the species’ population, and he hopes to make the survey project an annual event.

“The greatest benefit will come from multi-year monitoring to track the population trend of this rare species.”

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