Behavioural Activities of Two Sympatric Bird Species and Implications for Conservation and Birding Tourism in an Urban Landscape

Abstract

The behaviours of most Afro-tropical birds inhabiting urban landscapes are still poorly understood making species conservation and utilization challenging particularly in increasingly changing cityscapes. This study investigated activity patterns of two sympatric bird species, the Zanzibar red bishop (Euplectes nigroventris) and Black-headed weaver (Ploceus cucullatus) inhabiting urban forest remnants to provide information to improve species conservation and potential plans for avitourism in urban Morogoro, Tanzania. A total of 60 individual Zanzibar red bishop and 28 individual weaver birds were observed, for three weeks to understand their diel activity patterns. Eleven activities were displayed by the birds with the mean time budgets for some activities varying significantly between species, bird sex and habitat types. Further, birds spent significantly longer time during morning than afternoon or evening on most activities probably to offset the energy demands for the survival and reproduction. Variation in activity budgets between the two species was probably due to the species intrinsic strategies such as group foraging by the weaver that enhance easy detection and access to the food resources. These data will be useful for planning bird conservation and utilization programs especially in cities where birds are increasing threatened by human persecution.