Last month we were thrilled that BlueGreen Labs was formally listed as one of the projects in the Pairi Daiza Foundation Conservation report through their support in biologging of swifts in both Belgian and Portuguese colonies. The Foundation sponsored geologgers were fitted by Lyndon and Portuguese colleagues last summer and retrieved this year.
Also, this week a couple of juvenile swifts (Apus apus) took to the wing from their nest boxes in Melsele.
This year Lyndon continued a long standing collaboration with Chinese partners in Beijing, teaching a workshop at the Belgian embassy on how to fit loggers. This was a project by the Belgium-China cooperation with support from long-term swift enthousiast and current Belgian ambassador to China, Bruno Angelet. Thanks go out to Terry Townshend providing critical local knowledge and Martine Wauters, founder of Swifts Without Frontiers and creator of World Swift Day, for putting swift conservation on the map.
A short list of ongoing and upcoming conferences for 2022
In contrast to the current paradigm, which centers on insect availability using vegetation as a proxy, we show that weather related concentration of insects at convergence zones is key to describe foraging behaviour of Pallid swifts during the non-breeding season.