By Francesca Cunninghame

The aerial broadcast of brodifacoum to eradicate rats from Rábida and several small Galápagos Islands took place in January. This was a Galápagos National Park project with Island Conservation, Bell Laboratories, Charles Darwin Foundation, University of Minnesota Raptor Center and Durrell. Durrell provided staff (that is me, field manager of the Mangrove Finch Project) for Galápagos hawk mitigation. A risk assessment showed these endemic hawks risked suffering from secondary poisoning and to prevent this all the hawks holding territories where bait was to be spread needed to be brought into captivity for at least six weeks. Holding aviaries were built by Park personnel at a secluded spot on Santiago Island.

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By Luis Ortiz-Catedral (CDF)

I have some great news to share. The breeding season of the Floreana mockingbirds has started! This has created a lot of excitement among staff from the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) and the Galápagos National Park (GNP). We have been very busy finding nests on Champion and Gardner and also keeping notes about the variety of items fed to the young. The Floreana mockingbirds have a fascinating breeding behaviour: they breed in what we call “family groups” which usually consist of the actual breeding pair plus some helpers. The size of the group varies from three to six. In previous months we did an extensive ringing of individuals, which has proven invaluable to assign group membership now that breeding has started.

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By Luis Ortiz-Catedral

We had an exciting start of 2011 here in Floreana. Three weeks ago, a team of scientists and field staff from the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) joined forces to start a biodiversity assessment of Floreana Island and its islets. In a nutshell, the project aims to produce a detailed catalogue of all the species of plants, lichens, birds, mammals, reptiles, molluscs and arthropods present in over 40 plots. These plots were chosen using remote imaging techniques and include all the habitat types found on Floreana. All the information gathered is of the utmost importance to the Floreana Mockingbird Project, as it will help us identify the most promising sites to establish new populations of mockingbirds, taking into account the birds’ current status and the degree of management these sites would need to meet the needs of the “cucuves” (the Spanish name for the mockingbirds).

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By Luis Ortiz-Catedral (CDF)

Two weeks ago I finally had a chance to see the Floreana Mockingbirds Mimus trifasciatus in their habitat on Champion and Gardner-by-Floreana. During these brief visits I was accompanied by an awesome team composed of keen helpers from the Charles Darwin Foundation, Galápagos National Park and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

Our goal was to register every single ringed mockingbird on these two tiny islets off the coast of Floreana to continue with previous efforts aimed at understanding the demography of one of the rarest birds in the world. We also spent some time catching un-ringed birds to measure them and put metal and colour rings that will help us trace their individual lives.

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by Luis Ortiz-Catedral, Charles Darwin Foundation.

The Floreana mockingbird is a very special bird, given its position as the inspiration for the idea that formed the Theory of Natural Selection in the mind of Charles Darwin. But its also a very threatened bird. The Charles Darwin Foundation, Galápagos National Park, Durrell and Zurich University formed a collaboration to restore this species back to the island of Floreana. And now in 2010, which is also the International Year of Biodiversity, we are able to get this first phase of the project off the ground.

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The Natural History Museum has always been one of my favourite places in London. As an institution, it has been intertwined with the development of our understanding of the natural world for the last three hundred years. The very building itself is a monument to the discovery and reverence of nature. Also although it has some great displays, it’s what goes on behind the scenes that is most fascinating and so I was very excited to see a new series begin on BBC2 about the Museum and the people who work there (Museum of Life, BBC 2, Thursday 8pm).
 

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By Paquita Hoeck, Zoological Museum, University of Zürich

The Floreana Mockingbird is one of the rarest birds in the world and occurs only on two tiny islets off the coast of Floreana Island: Gardner-por-Floreana (81 ha) and Champion (9.5 ha) islands, in the Galápagos. Although the species was recorded on the island of Floreana by Charles Darwin in 1835, the last specimen collected on Floreana itself was in 1852 and the last reported sighting here was in 1868. The mockingbird was probably extinct on Floreana island by 1888, when it was searched for and not found, and remains only on the two islets. Extinction from Floreana has been attributed to an island-wide fire in 1819, human hunting, predation by dogs or cats, disappearance of the prickly pear cactus Opuntia megasperma, a favoured place to nest and a source of food, caused by goats, or more likely, predation at the nest by introduced Black Rats. Population estimates from a 2007 survey were: 38 birds on Champion and 98 on Gardner-por-Floreana.

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