 Bird Atlas of
UGANDA
Margaret Carswell, Derek Pomeroy, Jake Reynolds and Herbert Tushabe
Published by the British Ornithologists' Club & British Ornithologists' Union
Uganda has a huge diversity of habitats including the source of the River Nile, over a third of Lake Victoria (the world's second largest freshwater lake), many other rivers and wetlands, forests, savannas and mountains. This geographical diversity means that over 1000 bird species have been recorded in Uganda making this one of the most exciting and bird-rich countries on the planet.
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Uganda
is small – about the size of Britain – and yet has more than 1,000 bird
species, including many large and attractive ones, as well as the usual
plethora of ‘small brown jobs’ (in the case of Uganda, there are, for
example, 20 species of cisticola). This atlas records what we know so far
about the distribution and seasonality of these birds, and discusses this in
relation to their conservation. The distribution map of the Blue-spotted
Wood Dove below illustrates the novel approach, in showing both the actual
records of the species, and also indicating which parts of the country are
thought to have suitable habitat for the species, even though, as yet, it
may not have been recorded there.
 The
predictions are based upon a model, using rainfall and vegetation type for
each point where the species has actually been recorded. This approach was
adopted because, despite its modest size, many parts of Uganda have not been
studied in recent years; hence confining the distribution map to existing
records could often produce a misleading picture. An exciting consequence is
that the predicted areas are, in effect, hypotheses waiting to be tested.
Rich as Uganda’s birdlife is, there is already evidence that a number
of species are in decline. Amongst these are certain Palaearctic migrants,
which may be indicative of further global biodiversity loss. The Bird
Atlas of Uganda, although it reveals many gaps in what we know, does put
down a marker. The authors hope that this challenge will stimulate both
birders and researchers to fill in gaps and look out for future changes –
hopefully not all of these will be declines.
An example of predictive mapping. The map above
shows actual distribution records for Blue-spotted Wood Dove, and areas of
predicted suitable habitat (shaded pale grey). Solid circles are
geo-referenced with reasonable precision, whereas open circles represent
early Quarter Square Degree records.
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