Well I didn't get much new data through today - just one new point for Mallachie, and 4 new points for Rothes.
Mallachie was still in the Gambia close to Jarreng Tenda (this was at 5pm yesterday - 27th).
Rothes headed north into Senegal close to Cap Skirring until 11am yesterday, then headed back into Guinea Bissau for 3pm (the latest point I have) close to Catao Butame, E of Varela.
Hopefully I'll get a bit more data tomorrow.
Deadwood creation (for those of you who were asking) is where we go into the areas of the forest that have been identified as not having much deadwood in and create it. Basically we use chainsaws or a hand winch (which is heavy to carry about and hard work - which why the volunteers usually end up using it...) and make an intentional mess. By using a winch we end up with uprooted trees, with a chainsaw we can fell them close to the ground or higher up, ringbark them (to make them die but still be standing) etc etc. It's all about getting a bit of variety.
Deadwood is important in the forest because it supports lots of invertebrate species and birds etc. A few facts I got off Richard: Abernethy is the top ranked site in Scotland for saproxylic (living on deadwood) beetles (with 144 species recorded); at least 90 saproxylic species of conservation concern have been recorded on Abernethy; 35 species of deadwood dependant lichen and 16 species of deadwood dependant fly have been recorded on Abernethy; also at least 12 species of bird including goldeneye duck, redstart, crested tit, wryneck, swift, treecreeper etc (off the top off Richard's head) nest in holes in trees (or nestboxes!) and dead trees are more likely to have holes in. So you can see it's pretty important to have deadwood in a forest. It's also good fun to create it (though tiring...).
I'll update again tomorrow.