Avifauna of Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve, Malawi

Abstract

Despite having a well-documented avifauna, some areas of Malawi, such as  Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve (986 km²), are still poorly known ornithologically. We spent 12 days in October 2009, before the wet season, and two days in November 2009, after the first rains, documenting the birds of Vwaza. We found six new species for the Reserve—red-chested flufftail, African pitta, African broadbill, African reed warbler, marsh tchagra, and dark-capped yellow warbler—and we recorded 56 new quadrat records, filling in distributional gaps in the Malawi bird atlas. Many of these records are documented with voucher specimens. Here we provide a complete list of the 394 species of birds known to occur in Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve.

Keywords: Vwaza Marsh, Malawi, birds, protected areas, wetlands, miombo, Important Bird Area