Hunting for wasps and chickens – the prize.

Then, ahead of us, the other guide darted forward and shone his light on a large amphibian nestled in amongst some leaf litter on the forest floor.  It had a white underbelly and green and brown mottled back and legs but it had a knobbly head.  We realised it was no mountain chicken.  This was the dread cane toad.  It is unclear just why the cane toad came to Montserrat.  On other islands; Antigua and Jamaica, for example, they were brought in to the sugar cane plantations to control pests, but of course became a pest themselves.  Maybe a few cane toads made it on shipments to Montserrat, or somebody decided to bring them in to control pests on another crop.  Whatever, they have found a good niche here on the island.

The cane toad was duly noted in the field sheet (although it was an unscheduled transect, Scriber wanted to record his data) and we moved on up the ghut.  Soon afterwards the guides’ torches focused once more on the forest floor and I saw what appeared to be a garden ornament.  Standing stock still was a large amphibian again; but this time it has strong dark and light colourations – stripes on the legs and blotches across the back.  It had a black streak running from its shoulders to its eye sockets, and, in the torch light, the most amazingly deep amber eyes.  It perched, yes perched is the right word, on the ground; its front legs angled inwards and the toes pointing towards each other.  The massive back legs were curled tightly on themselves.  This was our elusive mountain chicken, coiled up in readiness to fly if needed.

But instead of escaping us, it stayed motionless in the full glare of our torches.  Scriber said it was a common behaviour against predators.  It looked a darn stupid one to me.  Scriber grabbed hold of it  – it more than covered his fist but still made little struggle.  Maybe a reason it was not doing so well…..

The elusive mountain chicken

It was weighed and measured and they took a look at its health and features.  They photographed it and then Scriber placed it carefully back on the ground.  I looked down at it and then realised both why the marking were so good and why a behaviour of freezing on encountering danger could work.  I could hardly make out the frog from all the leaf litter, twigs and other detritus down there.  If it moved it would be immediately noticed and possibly eaten.

Hunting for wasps and chicken – Scriber

One other noise occasionally broke the tree frogs’ chorus; a loud caterwauling, indeed like a cat having an argument with a neighbour.  Scriber pointed a finger skyward “the mountain chicken”.  He had a slot on his field datasheet to record this, positive contact but without a sighting.  Although we could get some idea of the direction of the call – the terrain and the complexity of the forest meant we could not find the actual callers themselves.

We heard several mountain chicken calling across the valley to each other, but we did not see any amphibians save these tree frogs.  I was rather disappointed.  My time on Montserrat was limited and there was no chance of another evening transect while I was on island.  Scriber was also disappointed for me and said “We’ll go over to another transect where I know we shall find one”.  We carefully picked out return route to the vehicle and headed along the main road past the top of Brades and the airport and over to the east coast.  Although the road zigzags in much the same fashion as on the leeward side of the island, there is little habitation.  The road used to head all the way down to Plymouth past several villages and the old airport, but this northern section, being on the more exposed windward side of the island, had barely been developed save for the odd quarry.  We parked up and headed up into the Centre Hills for the second time that evening.

Not a Mountain Chicken – but what is it?

While I was walking I asked Scriber how he got his name.  It turned out that he had a second job.  He was a poet and a writer as well as a conservation officer and tour guide.  He’d been told at school that he seemed to have a talent for making complicated things simple and he was a “Describer” which became in this modified form, his nickname.  He’d got into the habit of writing some of his descriptions down and was quite a legend amongst the local community.  Over the course of the time I was in Montserrat he told me a few about the turtles and the national bird, the Oriole.  But it was still mountain chickens I was hunting here.

Hunting for wasps and chickens – The chicken hunt begins

To this end the Conservation Department had a monitoring programme which I was there to support.  I talked extensively to the guys who did the work.  They could point to the areas they surveyed around the Centre Hills but had never mapped them.  In fact they were not points, they were transects, walks they did generally up one of the many ghut valleys and when they spotted a chicken they would take its measurements and check its health.   I’d worked on a database that allowed them to log sightings of individual mountain chickens along these transects and with the help of Matt, had worked out various ways to number crunch the information to make graphs showing both spatial comparisons between different valleys and trends in observations – whether the numbers spotted were increasing or decreasing.

With these kinds of databases, it is all very well coming up with complex ways to log and analyse the information; the reality of field data collection is it is often hard work, difficult to be consistent and often a long time spent for relatively few results.  I thought it would be a useful exercise for me to join the field workers on one of their expeditions into a ghut.

As with most amphibians in the tropics, the mountain chicken is most active at night.  So it was about 9 pm when the guys from conservation popped over to our villa and picked me up.  We didn’t go very far; they were looking at one of the western ghuts that night.  We parked the vehicle near some houses in a small road off the main route from north to south.  One of the guys, called Scriber, carefully extracted a sheet from envelope and fixed it securely to a clipboard.  he hauled a small backpack onto his shoulders and then said to me – ” you ready”.  I was wearing a head torch; the field  guys  were carrying large torches in their hands,  but we kept them off until we started walking on the transect itself.

I was ready – I had been fiddling with a GPS to establish our location exactly but now walked behind the guys recording our track out into the field.  The transect itself was marked by a ghut – a dry stream bed which only fills up after rain.  Many Caribbean islands are so volcanic that their rocks are porous and the slopes so steep that rain either soaks away into the soil immediately or rushes off to the sea very fast.  Few of the smaller islands have any permanent streams, but these channels are well marked and often the best way to make progress through the otherwise densely packed forest.  As we walked up the steep gradient, the forest was alive with noise – the chirruping of so many tree frogs.  I had visions of these being like the central American treefrogs – about 30cm long and brightly coloured.  Scriber kept flashing his light over a tree and saying – see all those tree frogs.  I could see nothing.  Eventually I had to ask him to show me one up close.  He went over to a tree and pulled down on a small branch, exposing the top part of a large floppy green leaf.  Nestled in the central rib was the tiniest frog I had ever seen – less than a centimetre across.  But it was perfectly formed with a pointed nose and a prominent backbone that held tight skin in place over its fleshy flanks and, for its size, powerful legs.  To imagine so much of the chirruping that I could hear was made from these miniscule bodies was beyond belief.  And although there were potentially many in the forest,  it still did not seem to account for all the noise.

Scriber scribing

Hunting for wasps and chickens – Bats, Birds and the elusive Galliwasp

My week on Montserrat was busy – I had to meet the various teams of environment department workers who were responsible for the different biodiversity programmes.  I was to meet an old friend of mine, Laverne, who almost single handedly had introduced and fostered use of GIS on Montserrat.  And I wanted to get a grip on the species I was looking at.

The biodiversity action plan was to focus on endemic species in the Central Hills.  My colleagues from Kew Gardens were getting a good handle on the plant species – had conducted transects across the hills and were finding new species almost all the time.  I had a quick job to manipulate their existing data into a format that could be transferred to their master database in London.  There was a guy called Steve who I started referring to as the batman; he was crazy about bats and had a complicated way of recording all his information.  The island conservation team more or less let him get on with it.  Bats are one of the few land mammals in the Caribbean that are endemic – given the chain reaches out in the ocean there are not many other ways to extend your species’ range unless you fly.  The result is that there are several endemic species and subspecies of bats in all the islands and Montserrat is no exception. I chatted with the batman a couple of times by email  but there did not seem much point in changing the way he did things for the sake of local conditions.

Then there were the birds.  I worked with Geoff from RSPB to decide how we would best tackle this.  I showed him the seabird databases I had developed in the South Atlantic, but we agreed this was a different case.  Here they were not trying to count every bird on a rocky outcrop, but to try and sample some shy species in forest undergrowth; most notably the Montserrat Oriole whose numbers had declined sharply after the eruptions.

The Centre Hills from our village

The two other species of interest were different.  The first was an enigma.  It was like hunting the snark, like the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat …. that isn’t there.  It was the Montserrat galliwasp.  A galliwasp is not, as you might imagine, a kind of insect, but a lizard.  For a smooth lizard it is slightly flattened, wide bodied even.  My description is all from books.  I didn’t see a galliwasp in the week I was there.  In fact it had been several years since anyone had seen a galliwasp.  The last time had been about five years ago and the poor creature in questions was in the jaws of a small dog so was not going to do anything to relieve its critically endangered species status.

So I designed a database that was to do a couple of things; one was allow anyone to log reports of people seeing a galliwasp – whether being eaten or not at the time.  The second was that a series of remarkably complex study sites were being set up to see if they could attract galliwasps in to be studied.  I never saw one of these sites themselves but it was described to me in great detail.  They sliced up the site into segments of long grass and short grass, corrugated iron they could hide under, scrubby vegetation.  I was to create a complex database that would describe all the habitats and the number of galliwasps of what sex, age, length and height.  All this for something which had not been seen alive for a generation.

Hunting for wasps and chickens – Pioneers in conservation

Now at last I was able to visit, but I was to work for another incredible conservation organisation, the Durrell Foundation.  As a teenager I had read all the Gerald Durrell books; my favourites being of the expeditions, and of his philosophy of how to build a zoo (the Stationary Ark).  I had long wanted to visit Jersey Zoo as one of the places that specialised in the less well known animals.  In Africa I had tired very quickly of hunting for the big five for that photo that everyone else already had – and was more keen to see the wider spread of other animals.  When I started working in small islands, the rate of speciation from isolated populations had formed myriad biodiversities, fragile and unique on these plots, and it only endeared me to that pioneering attitude of the Durrells.  Montserrat was a perfect  example of that fragility, especially since the volcanic eruptions had begun.

Alas I was still not to get to Jersey Zoo.  My first encounter with Durrell occurred in Bath on a frozen winter’s day; I met with one of the project coordinators who was resident at Bath University.  We discussed the project and agreed to establish a visit in the summer, between my two trips to Mauritius.  I actually prefaced my time in Montserrat with a couple of weeks touring the northern islands, visiting friends in Antigua, Culebra off Puerto Rico, and St John in the US Virgin Islands.  After a further night in Antigua, it was a leisurely drive to the airport on a Saturday afternoon, a simple check in  (mixing with the lobster red tourists gathering for the transatlantic services back to London) and then boarding a small prop plane for the barely twenty minute hop to Montserrat.  The service is an odd one as they only had a few seats =, and if there were more passengers they did a second shuttle.  Fortunately I was on the first out (I’ve never been keen to spend too much time in Antigua’s old departure lounge with the overcrowding and the interminable announcements calling out the destinations more like a bus route than a flight  – “calling at St Kitts, St Maarten and Beef Island, Tortola”….. “Calling at Melville Hall, Dominica, Vigie St Lucia, Barbados with onward connections to Grenada, Tobago and Georgetown Guyana”).

Day trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico

Into the Jungle – Beekeeping

On the edge of the village we were taken on a diversion to see some curious white boxes on legs under big trees.  One of STEWARD’s older activities  had been to establish beekeeping.  The rich honey of the African wild bee has been always prized by people in this part of the world, but the difficulty in obtaining it from caves high up in cliffs or up in the canopies of trees was a risky business.  Not only could the forager fall a long way and injure themselves badly, but if the bees decided to fight while you were up there it could be fatal.

By encouraging the establishment of hives near the village, of course, these safety features were taken into consideration; the bees might still sting as badly but at least you could stand a chance by running away.  The high value honey was also easier to collect from hives and the bees could be important pollinators in the small holdings, fields and fruit trees around the village.

We were shown these hives and then as we headed back into the village, one of the farmers dived into his house and came out with his beekeepers kit.  We watched him do a quick change into his top to toe white coveralls, his wellingtons, his red rubber gloves , and his smoker.  The result was a space age alien living amongst a bunch of Susu farmers.

Beehives

Beekeeper poses

They wanted to show us more and to stay with them, but we had to thank them for their hospitality and get back in our vehicles.  We had another meeting at the village of Sanya on the border, then cross into Guinea before they closed the border post for the night.

Into the Jungle – Down with the kids

There was no time for more as we had to set off for the fields.  The children, now enchanted by the visitors with their high tech gizmos followed like the children of Hamlin.  We saw the plant nursery, the community forest and the watershed catchment; to be honest it was very similar to the other two villages, but the villagers were so proud of their achievements that we had to afford them the same time to explain their activities.  As we went round the children started by following a few paces behind us, then we found them walking along side us, usually in silence.  If one of them made a silly remark or laughed too loud they were scolded by their peers.  They wanted to be around us and see what we would do.  I started to feel like a zoo exhibit.  Then the most remarkable thing happened.  Anne and Stephanie put out their hands to a couple of the children and they in turn reached out and walked alongside.  The other children were immediately jealous, but still slightly nervous.  I put out my hand to one quiet boy, he must have been barely three feet high.  His cold fingers touched mine, gingerly at first but then with a tight and what felt like a content grip.  Someone else took my other hand without me even gesturing.  At one time I actually had three on one side and two on the other, reaching for any part of my arm that was not already taken.  This way we walked back to the village.  The conversation was very stilted- we could all manage Bonjour and Hello, but if I said more than Ca va, they went quiet on me.  But they just enjoyed the experience.

The Scientist and Children crocodile

Surrounded by the village’s kids

As we walked back through the village, some of the kids broke off naturally, bored of this game.  Others were bawled at by their family to get on with the work they were supposed to have done hours ago. I got a couple of garbled “goodbye’s” from them but that was all.

Into the Jungle – Fintonia for the first time

We returned to the vehicles and thanked our hosts before heading off to the next village, Fintonia.  This was to become a very familiar place to me later in the project, and was where the acting paramount chief lived, the chief of chiefs of all of Tambakha.  The drive was relatively short, relative to the previous day anyway, and in about 45 minutes we were driving across a stream (where naked women were taking their ablutions and who giggled at us as we passed) and into a much more substantial village than Kortor.  A wide street with houses that gave way to a mosque, a community centre and off to one side a health centre.  At the head of the hill was a small roundabout, and we turned down another equally long road of houses.  About half way down the vehicles were parked and we gathered on the veranda of a low house with a rusty corrugated iron roof, some washing hanging outside and a few women sitting on a low wall chatting.  It took some believing that this was the paramount chief’s house.  But there were a few tell tale signs, the most obvious was a large drum hanging from the roof.  A small man wearing a brown safari suit came out from the interior of the house and we all went up to greet him.  The paramount chief had recently died and this man was acting in his place till a new one could be appointed.  He took his seat at one end of the veranda and patiently waited for the meeting to start.

The Paramount Chief awaits the villagers to arrive

The meeting spills out to nearby shady trees

One of the villagers; I seem to remember he was the secretary for the village, beat the hanging drum loudly several times, and Momoh reassured us that “the elders will be here soon”. And sure enough, one by one various men would walk in, some well dressed, others in wellingtons and overalls, greeting each other and introducing themselves to us.  A large crowd of onlookers had now gathered outside, first brought in by the cavalcade of cars that had passed through the streets, and partly because since the drum had sounded, they knew a big meeting was to happen.

We could not all fit under cover for the meeting, and several people sat on benches provided under the tree; there was a good breeze and it was still just before noon, so it was tolerable for those outside.  The same series of prayers, introductions, explanations and ratifications went on as in Kortor and we then were told that lunch would be provided followed by a tour of the STEWARD activities.  STEWARD maintained an office in Fintonia at the top of the village so we drove up another small street.  The office was one of the most substantial in Fintonia, and painted brightly in green and white.  It had a small compound round the back where cars, motorbikes, generators and other knick knacks were kept; the edifice itself contained a couple of offices and a spacious veranda both front and back.  In the centre of the back yard was a large satellite dish, which provided the only solid outside communication with the world for miles around.  You could not even get a mobile signal round here.  I had brought my laptop with me, taking it out of its bulky case and wrapping it carefully in amongst most of my clothes and wrapped in a kikoy.  It proved that it went on a bumpy and useless journey as I never turned it on once for the whole trip.  But there were others who could not resist downloading their emails.  So while we sat on the veranda and waited for lunch, they retreated into the offices and gawped at their screens.  A lady turned up with several helpers carrying a pile of white plates, several heavy enamelled pots and ladles.  She laid them out on a table an invited us to partake.  Taking a huge chunk of sticky rice, and pouring over a chicken in peanut sauce spiced up with some chilli, and drawing a glass of water from a nearby plastic barrel, we tucked in to our hot heavy lunch in the midday heat.

Waiting for lunch

STEWARD’s office

Into the Jungle- A tour of the projects

Which was to tour the STEWARD project activities in the village.  For me it was exceptionally useful to understand what had been done so far, and Kortor, probably because it was closest to the best of the remaining forest, had embraced a lot of the activity.  We wandered down to a large stand of gallery forest and saw how a tree nursery was being developed – various indigenous species being nurtured from seedlings under the canopy.  An area around the village had been demarcated as a community forest – a shared resource managed through the chief for everyone.  While the nurseryman explained the progress, a couple of monkeys watched us from their perches high in the canopy.

Next, we trouped into the community forest itself.  Mainly down in a small stream valley, the vegetation was thick and dense, but in a mature way rather than a scrubby thicket.  The huge buttresses reached up above our heads to support the mammoth tree trunks, the canopy shading out most of the light, but plenty of  vegetation thrived in the space below.  You could hear from the chatter of bird and frogs that there was a lot of fauna here too. We reached an area which had once been cleared but was still part of the community forest and the destination for many of the nursery saplings.  Amongst the natural trees, fruit crops were encouraged and banana and plantain were evident in great numbers.  Out in this more open space we could look back at the huge gallery trees and sense their scale and spread.  It was pointed out to us that you could see denser patches of leaves in the canopy, which were nests pulled together by chimpanzees – barely a kilometre from the centre of the village.  To an outsider this was a draw dropping moment, to come so close to one of the world’s most iconic species, a vanguard for conservation but to the villagers they were a bit of a pest.  It is bad enough having dumb insects and rats coming in to your fields and house to steal your food, but to have as intelligent a creature as a Chimpanzee causing you problems was intolerable.  Another conservation conundrum.

In the nursery

A rich green environment

Forest boundary

Spot the Chimpanzee nests

Trooping through the jungle

Kortor girl

In the Jungle – Meeting in Kortor.

In Kortor we started with a meeting with the elders, extension workers and selected individuals from the community.  The vehicles were parked under some trees and we were guided through the houses to a large spreading tree.  From every angle, people brought out seating – long planked benches, plastic moulded chairs, stools, wooden chairs, armchairs –  and placed it around the tree.  The morning life of the village was going on around us, cleaning the breakfast dishes, some washing, changing babies, a little purchasing in the one or two stalls established in people’s houses, and some coming and going to the surrounding area to farm or collect firewood. Almost every house had a goat tied up either on their veranda or next to the house. We were watched intently by all, especially by the children with nothing much else to do and to whom a white man was, while not a novelty, certainly a rarity.  Over the visits to Sierra Leone I was forever being shouted at by children as we drove through villages “foute foute foute”.  The grown kids would do it immediately, the smaller ones would be encouraged by their older siblings or mothers or grandmothers.  It was a game and all it meant was “white man”.

Ready for the meeting

The elders and the local chief approached and we greeted them; Momoh said a Christian prayer, the local Imam offered blessings and the chief said a few words.  The secretary of the village – like the Parish clerk in the UK I suppose, helped to translate and embellish the comments that whatever we were here to do, the chief would give us every consideration.  I kept quiet as I was still so new on the project but the chief recognised Annie and Stephanie from their previous visits and they gave some background on where the project had got to and what plans we had and what we wanted to do today.