The spring leaves are unfurling in Zambia’s miombo woodlands at the end of the dry season, and birds are breeding. Assisted by our usual wonderful field team, Luke McClean is starting his MSc research at the University of Cape Town on honeyguide-host interactions (with a special focus on Lesser Honeyguides and their Black-collared Barbet hosts), Nick Horrocks and Kiyoko Gotanda from the University of Cambridge are working on the trade-off that ground-nesting birds face between having their eggs cooked or eaten, and we welcome a film crew from Germany to film honeyguide-host interactions, ably assisted by Jeroen Koorevaar. See new photos uploaded to the Dry Season Fieldwork Gallery…
Chima Nwaogu presents research lecture at Uppsala University, Sweden
Dr Chima Nwaogu visited the Animal Ecology Unit at the Evolutionsbiologisk centrum (EBC) at Uppsala University, Sweden, to present the 2025 Christer Hemborg lecture. He gave a research lecture on why Afrotropical birds breed when they do, based on analyses of breeding records derived from Major John Colebrook-Robjent’s egg collection currently held at the Livingstone Museum. He explored how the effects of pre-rain tree green-up and rainfall onset differentially drive invertebrate and grass seed abundance, influencing multiple seasonal bird breeding patterns throughout the year.