By IANS,
Washington : Researchers have located the breeding ground of a species dubbed “the world’s least known bird” — the large-billed reed warbler, in the remote Wakhan reaches of Afghanistan.
The recent discovery represents a watershed moment in the study of this bird. The first specimen of such warblers was discovered in India in 1867, with well over a century elapsing before a second discovery of a single bird in Thailand in 2006.
Using a combination of astute field observations, museum specimens, DNA sequencing, and the first known audio recording of the species, researchers verified the discovery by capturing and releasing almost 20 birds earlier this year, the largest ever recorded.
“Practically nothing is known about this species, so this discovery of the breeding area represents a flood of new information on the large-billed reed warbler,” said Colin Poole, executive director of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Asia Programme.
The find serves as a case study in the detective work needed to confirm ornithological discoveries. The story begins in 2008, when Robert Timmins of the WCS was conducting a survey of bird communities along the Wakhan and Pamir rivers.
He immediately heard a distinctive song coming from a small, olive-brown bird with a long bill. Timmins taped the bird’s song. He later heard and observed more birds of the same species.
Initially, Timmins assumed these birds to be Blyth’s reed warblers, but a visit to a Natural History Museum in Tring in Britain to examine bird skins resulted in a surprise: the observed birds were another species.
Lars Svensson – an expert on the family of reed warblers and familiar with their songs -then realised that Timmins’ tape was probably the first recording of the large-billed reed warbler.
The following summer (June 2009), WCS researchers returned to the site of Timmins’ first survey, this time with mist nets used to catch birds for examination.
The research team broadcast the recording of the song, a technique used to bring curious birds of the same species into view for observation and examination.
The recording brought in large-billed reed warblers from all directions, allowing the team to catch almost 20 of them for examination and to collect feathers for DNA, said a WCS release.
Later lab work comparing museum specimens with measurements, field images, and DNA confirmed the exciting finding: the first-known breeding population of large-billed reed warblers.
A preliminary finding appears in the latest edition of BirdingASIA.