Clarke’s Weaver Ploceus golandi

A male Clarke’s Weaver in breeding plumage.

Clarke’s Weaver is one of the rarest birds in the world and its breeding site, or sites, have never been found. The race is on to locate nests and protect its threatened habitat before the species becomes extinct. Colin Jackson, Director of A Rocha Kenya, tells the story – and how you can help.

Clarke’s Weaver is found only in eastern Kenya, in the beautiful open woodlands dominated by Brachystegia spiciformis in the Watamu-Malindi area.

Most observations have been made in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, an area of 420 km2 protected under government law. Brachystegia is limited to 25% of the forest and so the weaver is found in only a very small area. Thankfully, despite continual illegal logging, the habitat is still in pretty good condition. However, whilst there have been many people studying birds in Arabuko-Sokoke, there has not been a single observation of the birds nest building, attending a nest or carrying food in the forest – though there has been one record of juveniles begging for food from adult females. We assume that the species must breed in the woodlands to the north of the Sabaki River – the Dakatcha Woodlands, which are a mosaic of Brachystegia on the white sandy soil and very dense Cynometra thicket on the red soils.

Ever since I came to Watamu, I have been visiting the Dakatcha Woodlands in search of breeding Clarke’s Weavers. The first expedition was in August 1998 when we saw no weavers at all. On the second trip we found them near the town of Marafa. This is an area of mature Brachystegia woodland and the canopy was quite thick though there was plenty of evidence of intense logging. We later camped at the edge of that section and had a feeding flock pass right through our camp. Since that time we have made various visits at different times of the year. The closest we have come to success was in March 2003, when we saw an adult female feeding a young bird. In May 2004 we found an unoccupied weaver nest, which we didn’t recognise, at the top of a tree. Its design eliminated all the other known breeding birds in the area and left Clarke’s Weaver as the likely constructor of it! However, until we actually find a Clarke’s Weaver at a nest, the mystery remains.

A large clearing in Brachystegia woodland, with the trees stacked ready to be burned for charcoal.

In 2005 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK) awarded a small grant to cover the basic costs of a monthly survey to Dakatcha to look for breeding Clarke’s Weavers (and also any of the equally threatened Sokoke Scops Owls which may be there). We have managed four expeditions since then, in collaboration with the Ornithology Dept. of National Museums of Kenya and Nature Kenya, but have only found small flocks of the weaver on one of those visits. The extremely worrying issue is that the intense illegal logging has continued unabated and in the past year a worse threat has appeared – charcoal burning. With the logging there was a lot of natural regeneration in the open spaces created, but with charcoal burning a whole area of forest is swept clean and, very often, later cultivated.

A Rocha Kenya and our partners plan to continue the surveys and we still hope to locate breeding weavers. We have also begun working with the local communities to find alternative sources of income that will not destroy the forest. A Rocha plans to use Climate Stewards funding to develop a programme of reafforestation – so please use the Climate Stewards website to offset your carbon footprint and help us, in due course, to increase the chance of Clarke’s Weaver escaping extinction. We also want to work closely with the churches in the area, teaching the many local Christians about our responsibility to care for God’s world and especially helping them to look after the beautiful weaver which God placed only in our back garden.