Checklist of Birds in Mabira forest reserve, Uganda

Study Extent

These data are a checklist dataset of birds recorded from Mabira forest reserve.

Sampling

The sampling methodology used for data collection was observation. Observations were made using 8 x 30 and 10 x 40 binoculars. Effort was made to visit as many habitats as possible with maximum coverage occurring in the early morning and towards evening

Quality Control

Wherever possible, identification was carried out in the field. Birds were identified using Williams and Arlott (1980), Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1957, 1960), Guggisburg (1986), Sinclair et al. (1993), and Brown et al. (1982), Urban et al. (1986), Fry et al. (1988) and Keith et al. (1992). The order and nomenclature used in the original survey reports followed Britton (1980), Carswell and Pomeroy (1984) with revisions made by the Ornithological Sub-Committee of the East Africa Natural History Society (D. Turner, pers. comm.). The order, taxonomy and nomenclature were subsequently revised according to the HBW and BirdLife International checklist taxonomy (del Hoyo and Collar 2014, 2016). According to the original survey reports: “Ranger ornithologists were trained to make detailed field descriptions of their observations, including notes on the appearance, calls and behaviour of birds and the habitats in which they were observed. Each ranger was provided with a shortlist of (generally common, unmistakable) species that did not require verification, but records of any other species were only accepted... on submission of one (or preferably two) voucher specimens of each species... During the programme, a comprehensive reference collection was made at Forest Department headquarters. Any difficult specimens were taken to the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, or the Zoological Museum at Tring, UK for identification.” The geographic coordinates of sampling locations were recorded during the original fieldwork using the Military Grid Reference System (old version). These were converted to a standard UTM format and then to decimal latitude and longitude using GIS based tools.

Method steps

1. The national survey of Uganda forests collected data in 65 forests. The original field survey results including all data were published in a series of reports by the Forest Department of Uganda (Howard et al. 1996). The current dataset comprises records of birds that were observed during this survey. We selected a sample of forests that had been surveyed in the Central and Eastern Regions of Uganda in order to digitise the data for GBIF. Electronic copies of the written reports and a separate electronic database of records were made available for this purpose by the original authors of the reports (Peter Howard). We extracted the bird mist netting records from the electronic database and supplemented these with location data provided in the narrative reports. The species names were updated to modern taxonomy by aligning the names and regionally appropriate forms (subspecies) with the HBW and BirdLife International checklist taxonomy (del Hoyo and Collar 2014, 2016) paying particular attention to potential taxonomic splits and lumps that had occurred since the original data were collected. The location data in the original reports were provided in Military Grid Reference System. These were first converted to standard UTM coordinates, noting that the MGRS was using an old datum (MGRS-AL scheme also called "MGRS old"). UTM coordinates were then converted to decimal degrees using an online conversion spreadsheet (https://giscrack.com/download-excel-template-convert-geographic-coordinates-utm/). The converted locations were then checked against Google Maps imagery to confirm that a satisfactory conversion had been made. Species records from each Forest Reserve were checked against the distribution maps in Carswell et al. (2005) and through expert assessment (J. Lindsell) to ensure that no unsubstantiated or extralimital records were included.

A total of 287 bird (Aves) species were recorded and identified to species level.

1. Ciconia abdimii Lichtenstein, 1823
   common name: Abdim's Stork rank: species
2. Columba unicincta Cassin, 1860
   common name: Afep Pigeon rank: species

The data were collected from Mabira forest reserve based on observation records.