PAOC12 WELCOME I welcome you to the Twelfth Pan-African Ornithological Congress, PAOC12. I do this on behalf of the three host institutions, the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI) at the University of Jos, Nigeria, and the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology (the Fitz) and the Animal Demography Unit (ADU), both at the University of Cape Town. When you stop to think about it, PAOCs happen every four years, and this is the 12th, so we must be some- where near our 50th anniversary. In reality, the intervals between PAOCs varied from three years to seven years. The first PAOC was in fact held in 1957, in Livingstone, Zambia. So PAOC12 is as close to 50 years from the start as we will get. Africa is the first continent to have a “continental” ornithological congress. The Europeans did not get that right until 1997! The story of how the Pan-African Ornithological Congress came into being is one that bears retelling. In 1954, Cecily Niven suggested that the 12th International Ornithological Congress (IOC) be held in southern Africa. The competing invitation was from Finland, and IOC13 took place there. The IOC finally came to Africa in 1998, when IOC22 was held in Durban, South Africa. But the idea of an ornithological congress in Africa took root, and came to fruition within three years. Michel Louette and Emil Urban have done a great service by writing the history of the first 11 Pan-African Ornithological Congresses in the proceedings of PAOC11 (Louette & Urban 2007). Michel and Emil, the latter is sadly unable to attend PAOC12, have attended virtually all of the PAOCs since PAOC3. Terry Oatley attended PAOC1, and he will join us for the opening day of PAOC12. Such was his enthusiasm to attend the PAOC, that he traveled from Durban to Livingstone on a motor bike. All of us have made a journey to be here, either short or long, maybe as arduous as Terry’s epic drive in 1957. You are all most welcome. If we can make your stay at Goudini Spa more comfortable please come and talk to us. Two local institutions are even older than the PAOC, and celebrate their 60th anniversaries in 2008. These are the Cape Bird Club, the branch of BirdLife South Africa in this corner of South Africa. Peter Steyn will do a presentation on Monday evening. When Peter is the speaker at a club evening, the venue is packed. 2008 is also the 60th anniversary of bird ringing in South Africa; there is a symposium focusing on ringing in Africa, and there will be demonstrations of bird ringing in the early mornings. My colleague John Cooper and I wrote a short note called How to attend a scientific conference to your best advantage. It gets given to ADU students when they attend their first conferences. The short version is included in this programme (see p. iv–v). The sound byte version runs like this: “Use the opportunity presented here to network – keep a long distance from all the colleagues you can talk to every day”. On p. 131 you will find Meredith Thornton’s glossary of South Africanisms. If you can’t understand the peculiar brand of English we speak, take refuge here. In South Africa, “just now” does NOT mean “immedi- ately”, it means “sometime before the next millennium”. I am grateful to the tiny handful of people who have done the lion’s share of the organisation. Doug Harebottle and Glaudin Kruger must be singled out for special mention. We are also particularly grateful to Tasso Leventis – the Leventis Conservation Trust enabled us to pay the deposit on the Goudini Spa Conference Centre – who has been a great supporter of ornithology in Africa, particularly Nigeria, where APLORI was established in 2001. APLORI is making no fewer than 17 presentations at this congress. Les G Underhill Chair: National Organising Committee Reference: Louette, M. & Urban, E.K. 2007. Overview of the eleven Pan-African Ornithological Congresses. Ostrich 78(2): xiii–xxiv. i PAOC Committee President: Dr Christine Dranzoa Chair: Mr Oliver Nasirwa Mr Houssein Rayaleh Dr Muchai Muchane Mr Abdoulaye Ndiaye Prof. Boudjema Samraoui Dr Augustine U. Ezealor Prof. Ali El Hili Mr Mokoko Okonja Jerome Dr Martin Nhlane M. Wenceslas Gatarabirwa Dr Laurent Ntahuga Dr. H.F. Rakotomanana Mr Doug Harebottle Mr Kabelo Senyatso Dr Adrain Craig Dr Thomas Cook Dr Mark O’Connell Dr Ulf Ottosson Dr Jan Wannink Mr Samuel Kofi Nyame Mr Tim Dodman Dr Julius Arinatwe Dr Leon Bennun ABC Representative BirdLife International Representative Scientific Committee Chairman: Mr Doug Harebottle Prof. Adrain Craig Dr H.F. Rakotomanana Dr Muchane Muchai Finance Committee Chairman: Prof. Ali El Hili Dr Thomas Brooks Dr Jan Wanink Prof. Boudjema Samraoui National Organising Committee Chairman: Prof. Les Underhill Mr Doug Harebottle Mr Mark Anderson Mrs Glaudin Kruger ii Message from the Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee Dear Colleagues My appreciation to all presenters for their contributions to this twelfth congress. The programme is relatively diverse and I think it will offer delegates a wide selection of interesting and stimulating topics. Likewise Africa’s avifauna is diverse, but many species are under threat - it is my hope that this congress will stimulate constructive discussion amongst colleagues and put in place conservation actions that will continue to preserve birds and their habitats across the continent. I would like to thank my fellow committee members, Professor Adrian Craig, Doctors Hanjanirina Rakotomanana and Muchane Muchai for their assistance, support and guidance, and Mr Mark Anderson for his help and input, regarding the planning of the scientific programme and editing of the abstracts. With best wishes for a successful congress Doug Harebottle Instructions to PAOC Participants Orals (Papers) All delegates should hand their PowerPoint presentations in to the Secretariat as soon as possible after registration. The final hand-in time for each presentation is the evening prior to the day on which the oral takes place. Posters Posters will be numbered; during the coffee breaks each day, authors assigned to “odd numbers” or “even numbers” should be present at their posters so that delegates wishing to discuss their work can meet with them. Proceedings All plenaries, papers and posters, plus summaries of round-table meetings, presented at the congress can be submitted for publication in the congress proceedings. The proceedings for PAOC12 will be published on-line and on CD. Please take note of the Instructions to Authors, and ensure that the full manuscript is submitted by 31 October 2008. Should manuscripts not be received by the final submission date, the corresponding abstract will be published in the proceedings. Instructions to Authors Authors are asked to kindly follow the following instructions and format when preparing their papers l Only electronic submissions can be accepted. Please send your paper either as an attachment to an email to Doug. [email protected] or on CD to Doug Harebottle, Animal Demography Unit, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa. You can also submit your paper(s) during the congress. These should be supplied on a Flashdrive or CD. l Papers can be submitted in either English or French. Abstracts should be limited to 300 words. l Text: this follows the conventions used in the Wader Study Group Bulletin. Paper titles and author(s) names to be Times New Roman (14 pt) all other text to be Times New Roman (12 pt). Please follow the conventions for keywords, abstract (summary), headings, cited references, reference lists etc. as in the example given on the PAOC12 website (http://paoc12. adu.org.za/docs/wsgbull_example.pdf). Please take note of the following: cited references in the text are listed alphabeti- cally, not in date order. l Figures: Please ensure that the resolution of all figures is at least 300 dots per inch (dpi). Please do not copy figures into the text file but provide them separately in their original format. EPS, PS, TIFF and PDF files are suitable. Figures imported into MSWord files are unsuitable for typesetting as their resolution is much too low. iii How to attend a scientific conference to your best advantage John Cooper and Les G. Underhill Animal Demography Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701 South Africa The golden rule of conference attendance is simple. Escape you, search out the owner and discuss it with her/him. the bubble of your cozy group of colleagues. Keep a degree When you get your conference pack, look carefully of space between yourself and the people you can interact through the name and address list of people attending. If you with at home when you are not at the conference, so as to see that people whom you want to meet are attending, make allow time to meet new people, have useful conversations a list of them and search them out. You can do this in at least with them and hopefully establish long-lasting professional two ways: look at the name badges, or ask people if they can relationships. However, do touch sides with your own people, point out ABC to you. If you have read one of their papers, if only for de-briefing, at least once a day. In this way you will you can say: “Hi, I’m DEF, and I found your paper in HIJ on be able to act as a colleague should, introducing your new XYZ very interesting and helpful.” That little bit of flattery acquaintances and friends (and meeting theirs), and mooting ought to get you into conversation. If these high fliers are joint research programmes and the like.