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Lost and poorly known birds: targets for birders in Asia

by S.H.M. Butchart, N.J. Collar, M.J. Crosby and J.A. Tobias from BirdingASIA 3, June 2005.

The rediscovery of Cebu Flowerpecker Dicaeum quadricolor, by Rob Timmins and others in 1992 on the Philippine island of Cebu (Dutson et al. 1993), was an extraordinary event. The bird had not been seen for 86 years, and had been written off as extinct at least 40 years earlier on the presumption that no forest remained on the island (see Collar 1998; also Magsalay et al. 1995). Six years later, Jon Riley and Jim Wardill finally tracked down the long-tailed blue flycatcher they had been searching for on-and-off for four years on the Indonesian island of Sangihe (Riley & Wardill 2001). In doing so, they put Caerulean Paradise-flycatcher Eutrichomyias rowleyi , firmly back on the ornithological map. It had previously been known only from an 1878 type specimen and a belatedly published sight record in 1978, and had been presumed extinct following fruitless searches in 1985–1986 (Whitten et al. 1987).

Most recently, in February 2005, Ben King (in litt. 2005) and Julian Donahue rediscovered Rusty-throated Wren Babbler Spelaeornis badeigularis, about 50 km from where the type specimen was collected in 1947 (in the Mishmi Hills of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, India), the only previous record of this species. There are in fact a remarkable number of Asian species that were collected in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, and then not recorded for many decades before being rediscovered, or at least re-seen, as modern birdwatching took hold in the region. Examples include: Forest Owlet Athene blewitti (last collected 1884, rediscovered 1997); Damar Flycatcher Ficedula henrici (last collected 1898, next seen again 2001); White-tipped Monarch Monarcha everetti (last collected 1927, next seen again 1993); Black-chinned Monarch M. boanensis (collected 1918, next seen again 1991); Sangihe Shrike-thrush Colluricincla sanghirensis (collected 1878, next seen again 1985); White-browed Nuthatch Sitta victoriae (last recorded 1938, next seen again 1995); Sangihe White-eye Zosterops nehrkorni (collected 1886, next seen again 1996); and Rufous-throated White-eye Madanga ruficollis (collected 1922, next seen again 1995) (BirdLife International 2001, Trainor 2002). In most of these cases the "rediscovery" was mainly just a matter of re-visiting a remote island, but sometimes - as in the cases of Jerdon's Courser and Forest Owlet - the event is only the result of considerable initiative and endeavour.

Rediscovering one of Asia's "lost" species must be in many birders' dreams. Fourteen such birds ripe for rediscovery, some of which remain unseen for over 150 years, are highlighted below. We outline in each case the historical range, details of the last sighting, and priorities for future searches. Birders tend to visit the same popular birding sites, but we strongly encourage people to venture into less known territory in order to track down some of these exciting and enigmatic birds. Such searches are prerequisites for their conservation.

In addition, there are a number of species so poorly known we cannot even classify their conservation status. Such species are placed in the Data Deficient category on the IUCN Red List (IUCN 2001). This applies in cases where there is insufficient information to make a direct, or indirect, assessment of extinction risk. Generally we would not expect these species to prove to be threatened, but more information is needed to permit an adequate assessment. Here we list ten such species from the region for which birders' records could significantly improve our understanding of their ranges, habitats and threats, and hence help clarify their conservation status.

The information below largely derives from the detailed accounts (with point-locality maps) in in Threatened birds of Asia (BirdLife International 2001; available online at www.rdb.or.id) and the global summary factsheets in Threatened birds of the world 2004 (BirdLife International 2004; regularly updated online at www.birdlife.org). Readers are directed to these sources for more detailed information and citations to original sources of information. The IUCN Red List categories given below come from the 2005 IUCN Red List, which will be released in autumn 2005, and which is based on the updated factsheets already available at www. birdlife. org.

NORTHERN ASIA

Crested Shelduck Tadorna cristata
Critically Endangered. This species is known from a small number of records from Primorye in Russia, Hokkaido in Japan (a single nineteenth century record) and South Korea. The last sighting was of a male and two females in May 1964 on islands south of Vladivostok, Russia. A sighting of two males and four females was claimed in North Korea in March 1971, but serious reservations have recently been expressed about the reliability of this record. There have also been several unconfirmed records from north-east China, in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Hebei. Searches are needed in wetlands (including forest rivers) in eastern Russia, North Korea and northeastern China.

Vaurie's Nightjar Caprimulgus centralasicus
Data Deficient. This species is known from a single record in Xinjiang, western China. Several recent surveys of the type-locality and other similar sites in this region have failed to locate it, indicating that it is scarce and presumably localised. The type-specimen was collected in sandy scrubjungle at 1,220 m, and it presumably occurs in desert and semi-desert habitats. However, there has been widespread degradation of these habitats in the Taklimakan Desert through the intensive grazing of goats and camels, extraction of fuelwood, and the conversion of huge areas to irrigated farmland. In 1990, the habitats at the typelocality, Guma, were found to have been greatly altered since the 1920s. Further searches are needed throughout the area. Cleere (1998) suggested that the specimen may actually be an immature of the subspecies of Eurasian Nightjar C. europeaus which breeds in Xinjiang, so further work is also needed to determine its taxonomic status.

Sillem's Mountain Finch Leucosticte sillemi
Data Deficient. This species is known only from two specimens collected in 1929 on a barren plateau at 5, 125 m in southern Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China (in an area under Chinese administration but also claimed by India). Its population is unknown, but it is presumably localised and scarce. One of the birds collected was a juvenile with wings not yet fully grown, and the collector considered that the birds had either bred close to where they were collected or on the nearby peaks in the Kunlun Shan range. It is probably resident at the type-locality, as the adult col- 42 "Lost" and poorly known birds: top targets for birders in Asia lected was in full moult in September. No threats are known and there are unlikely to be any in the remote area from which it is known, but further searches are need to clarify its status and distribution.