October – November 2014

Another success was recently recorded for the Black-winged Starling Reintroduction Programme in Halimun Salak National Park. Two chicks successfully fledged out of the nest box on the 9th of November. The pair already raised successfully two juveniles in April 2014 in the same box and proved again their good parental skills for this second clutch.

The new hatched Juvenille in Halimun-Salak NP (Photo by Fitryana Rahayu)

This new breeding raises the released population to 8 birds: 5 juveniles and 3 adults coming from the initial release. The three juveniles from the last breeding and one adult male are always observed together and, because of the new fruiting season of the Umbrella trees that started recently, they can now forage again on fruits.

The pair from released program of CCBC in Halimun-Salak NP (photo by Anais Tritto)

In the near future, all the nest boxes infested by ants or bees will be changed to make them available for the birds for the next breeding season. The boxes will be equipped with nest box cameras to record the next breeding and bring valuable information on the rearing of the chicks.
Since last August, three security guards were hired to protect the birds from bird catching, after the catching event that occurred in July 2014. They are local people and showed their devotion to the protection of this species by regularly informing the team of where the birds are, talking to local people about the importance of this species and showing their quick reaction in case suspicious people are looking around the release site. Since they are part of the team, no other bird catching was noticed on the site and, regularly, local people themselves showed us their intention to protect the birds. Since last August, no bird disappeared from our site and they all can fly freely around the village without disturbance.

Thanks to the good support from Chester Zoo, two people joined recently the CCBC team: Fitryana becomes the new CCBC Field Biologist and Renaldi the new CCBC Education officer. Fitryana graduated from University of Indonesia (known at one of the best Universities in Indonesia) and will focus deeply on the monitoring of the Black-winged Starling in Halimun, supervising the students and bring valuable data for the programme. Renaldi graduated in “Education for Biology” from the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) and will develop a strong Education Programme and Community Development in Halimun. Both of them are motivated to develop this programme and already showed their commitment to the protection of these species. We are really happy to have them and we wish them success for the future!!

The new CCBC Team with (from the left Renaldi, Anais and Fitryana)