Study of a flowerpecker might help save species on Wakatobi

To get to the remote Wakatobi island in Indonesia where he is studying a unique bird species, Seán Kelly has to fly from Dublin to the Middle East, fly from there to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, and then take two more short flights and a boat trip. The journey takes days.

It’s all worth it for Kelly, a Phd student at Trinity College Dublin, because his research may ultimately form part of international conservation planning to protect the beautiful but highly threatened Wakatobi Flowerpecker and other bird species.

A native of Co Kildare, Kelly went to primary school in Athgarvan on the edge of the Curragh where he grew up surrounded by wildlife. He went to the Patrician Brothers secondary school in Newbridge before going on to study science at TCD and then zoology, where his passion for ornithology – the study of birds – began.

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Seán Kelly: decided to focus his research on a number of small birds from Wakatobi island

“I was always interested in the outdoors and wildlife, but it was only as an undergraduate that I really started to study it. My lecturers had such an interest in and enthusiasm for the subject. As an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to go out to Indonesia in 2009 and do some research there. I loved it so much I ended up doing my Phd on it,’ says Kelly. He decided to focus his research on a number of small birds from Wakatobi island in the Indonesian province of Southeast Sulawesi. The species he is primarily interested in are the Lemon-bellied White-eye, Olive-backed Sunbird and Grey-sided Flowerpecker.

“My supervisors had been studying out there for some time and are involved in charity conservation work in this region of Indonesia where there are a lot of unique but highly threatened bird species, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. However, because of its complex geography and under-development, there has been very little research work done there,” he explains.

Field trip

In 2012, Kelly went on his first field trip to the scenic Wakatobi island, which is located about 27km from the mainland. Living conditions on the island are very basic: electricity is available only at night when the generators come on, and the plumbing system is poor. The people rely on fishing for their food and income, and also grow cassava, maize, tubers and beans.

“Conditions are basic but the people get by. It was an amazing experience. These people have so little but they are so willing to share. They are a very friendly people and we share a house with the locals when we go out there,” says Kelly.

Every day, Kelly and fellow researchers head out at 5.30am to start their field work. They trap the birds without harming them by using mist netting, a technique involving the use of fine nets in strategic locations. They then extract the birds from the nets so they can study them closely, take measurements, samples for DNA analysis and photos.

The Wakatobi Flowerpecker – so called for its habit of pecking nectar from the base of flowers – has become recognised as a distinct species as a result of the recent work of the Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology Group at Trinity of which Kelly is a member. While Kelly would eventually love to get a full-time research job in Ireland and to do some lecturing, he points out that there are more opportunities for people who are prepared to travel abroad.

Potential for discovery

“I would like to travel and study in other areas of high conservation threat. There is huge potential for discovery and a lot of work is being done in tropical parts of the world where there is heavy deforestation and pollution but very little information about the native wildlife species. We need to know what’s happening with these species, how many there are, if they are declining or increasing, what they need to survive and what the threats to their survival are. This is one of most important means for governments to use for conservation planning. If, for example, they know that three- quarters of a species of bird lives in one particular area where the forest is under threat, than they know that they need to preserve that habitat.”

About 103,450 people live on Wakatobi, which might sound high compared to an Irish island but it’s small relative to Indonesia.The island and waters around it have been declared a national park and divers come from all over the world to dive in its spectacular coral gardens.