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| Karamoja Apalis (Apalis karamojae) in Eastern Uganda and finding the species first nest |
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Laying the groundwork
 During a Bird Population Monitoring survey on 31st January and 1st February 2011, conducted by members of NatureUganda in the Iriri Region of Eastern Uganda approximately 70 kilometres west of Moroto town, the teams were fortunate to record six individuals of the Globally Vulnerable and Range Restricted Karamoja Apalis A. karamojae in an area of dwarf Acacia scrub acacia drepanolobium. This sighting was totally unexpected as these counts had been carried out for over ten years and this is the first occurrence. According to the” Bird Atlas of Uganda”, ( Carswell et. al, 2005), the few Ugandan records of this species are of specimens collected from Mt Moroto and Mt Napak and sight records from Kidepo Valley National Park most recently in 1998. This may therefore be an extension of the range of this species if the sighting was not only due to local movements.
During a further brief visit on 28th July 2011 a NatureUganda team stopped off at the site on their way through to Moroto, they were very fortunate and located a pair within an hour and were able to take a few photographs before continuing East.
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Photo by Michael Opige: Karamoja Apalis nest
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NatureUganda members conducted a follow up survey during 23rd-27th October 2011 and recorded about nine birds in total. They appear extremely localised and were only found in an area of seasonally flooded grassland with the Whistling Thorn A. drepanolobium the dominant shrub. They sampled suitable areas both 30 kilometres East and 30 kilometres West of our base Irriri in to gauge distribution. The surrounding transects are drier and are used by the Karamajong for occasional farming, charcoal production and grazing, these factors obviously affecting the birds distribution. The team was fortunate to obtain recordings of Karamoja Apalis from Southern Tanzania. These recordings proved extremely illuminating in a negative way.
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On four occasions they were able to offer playback to the Uganda birds and found there was no response what so ever, if ever a Karamoja Apalis could show disdain then these birds did! One bird we approached to within ten metres, playing the tape constantly for over two minutes, it barely turned its head and continued feeding and preening until we approached too close and it flew off. The opinion of the team is they do not respond to the Tanzanian songs. This was confirmed the following day when they recorded a pair who gave a brief burst of song, although typically Apalis, it was very different from the Tanzanian birds, being sharper and faster than those recordings.
On the final afternoon the 25th they decided to attempt to catch an Apalis and positioned two nets between likely looking rides of A.drepanolobium in an area that had two birds (a possible pair). Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful in this attempt but did see a pair of Karamoja Apalis within 50 meters of a net and were astonished to find them entering a nest situated in A.drepanolobium about 8ft above the ground. These birds were calling a double note "Teeeng Teeeng", higher pitched at the beginning. Due to the delicate nature of the nest, constructed of fibres of cotton like material and cob web, with the entrance near the top of a closed cup, and the fact that they estimated the population to be extremely small and vulnerable (6-8 pairs?) they neither attempted to enter the nest or to move the mist nets closer. It was considered the birds were incubating eggs or very young chicks judging by the change-over period at the nest.
What next:
1/ An GIS survey or more detailed foot surveys should be completed to discover the extent of the birds chosen habitat of "Impeded Drainage", so we can better assess the population and evaluate its threats.
2/ An attempt to capture some birds would be useful to establish DNA sequencing of this population so we can show if it is divergent from the satellite population in Tanzania.
Michael Opige, Roger Q Skeen.
NatureUganda, Kampala, Uganda.
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