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Birds attracted by seasonal wetlands in Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim faunal reserve

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Read here the fifth article of Sandscript 31^st issue

Like many wetlands worldwide, these temporary habitats welcome many bird species from the first long rains, often during the first two weeks of July. As diverse as they are numerous, these birds roam the watering places from one end of the reserve to the other, depending on the intensity, quantity and duration of the rainfall.

For this issue of Sandscript, we invite you to discover the main species of storks that regularly visit OROAFR, heralding the beginning and the end of the rainy season.

Storks play an important ecological role by feeding on grasshoppers, which are found in abundance in the region, along with snakes and rodents. We can observe their activities on vast prairies with herbaceous cover, teeming with all kinds of acridian species during the verdant period. On an aerial survey of the reserve during the rainy season, we were able to observe hundreds of storks around the wetlands, not far from the nomadic pastoralists’ camps. According to data collected by the reserve’s ecological monitoring team (of Sahara Conservation), over the past three rainy seasons (2020-2022), the species most often observed are white storks, Abdim’s storks and marabou storks.

1. White stork, Ciconia ciconia

The white stork has a vermilion beak and legs, its wings are primarily black. It is a species very frequently observed in OROAFR. They stay there in their thousands during the rainy season due to the abundance of grasshoppers. They also find many insects to feed on during and after bush fires.

2. Abdim’s stork, Ciconia abdimii

Abdim’s stork is a colorful bird: its plumage is bronze black, its back, chest and stomach are white, its face is bluish grey and its beak green with a red tip, its legs are green grey and, finally, its knees are red. It lives in the dry regions of tropical Africa, moving according to the seasons. Abdim’s stork also comes to RFOROA in great flocks and then returns to Southern Chad, where it likes to nest in the tall trees in the middle of villages and towns. It is observed in OROAFR from mid-August to mid-October.

3. Marabou stork, Leptoptilos crumeniferus

The marabou stork, a scavenger species, presents a large pocket of bare skin under its neck. It has black wings with a light grey border on the secondaries. It begins its stay in OROAFR at almost the same period as the previous species, in other words mid-July or early August depending on how heavy the first rains are. It remains there until mid- November, after sharing the carrion with most of the reserve’s nesting and migratory vultures. In August 2022, marabou storks were present in their thousands, hunting for acridians.
Although they are normally observed in high numbers in Chad, there is little recent information about where they nest.

In short, the vast grasslands of Chad, and particularly those in OROAFR, represent favourable biotopes and a high-quality refuge for the populations of these three stork species and offer us an incomparable area of investigation to study both their migratory movements and nesting sites.