THE SONG SPARROW BIRDING in MADAGASCAR by Toby Nowlan
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THE SONG SPARROW BIRDING IN MADAGASCAR by Toby Nowlan The bird appeared again in front of me not three metres away shouting a harsh, scratchy alarm call in phrases of three notes. It clearly regarded me with some sort of disgust though was not afraid of being obvious and exposed. This was the second time I had seen the species and it confirmed that I hadn’t imagined things the first time (as we birders are prone to doing). Without wanting to give too much away, I saw a combination of bright white eye-ring, heavy pink bill, thrush-like size and pale grey wash across the mantle and breast which gives the bird an appearance like no other in the Sinclair and Bird Protection Quebec Protection Bird Langrand’s stunning field guide The Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands. Since this forest of Makira, the largest remaining tract of protected forest left in Madagascar, has rarely been entered let alone surveyed by ornithologists, it is indeed possible that this was a new species. It side-stepped through the mid-canopy and through alarm-calling it drew the attention of other species. I was descended on by a mob of Greenbuls, Madagascar Bulbuls, Brush Warblers, Couas, Cuckoo-rollers, Cuckoo-shrikes, Illustration by Toby Nowlan Paradise-Flycatchers and the rightly sought-after Helmet Vanga, complete with monstrous electric blue Contents ... bill. 1 Birding in Madagascar The forests of Makira are in the north east of 3 President’s Message Madagascar, part of what was once an unbroken belt 6 Winter Bird Monitoring of glorious rainforest that lined Madagascar's eastern Newsletter of Bird 7 Bird Views coast. Though now reduced to a few poorly protected Protection Quebec 9 Book Reviews and Recommendations fragments, Madagascar's rainforests hold world-class 16 Winter Lecture series birding. For those who don't know Madagascar, it is a Editor: Jane Cormack 16 Forthcoming Field trips lost world: a zoologist's (and birder's) paradise. In any 19 International Birding natural or semi-natural habitat in the country, one is December 2011 20 Calendar likely to encounter bizarre and wonderful species Vol. 54-3 found nowhere else on earth. Madagascar is world- renowned for its unparalleled endemism, and the 1 birds are no exception. With around 120 endemic species (this taxi-brousse (jam-packed bush taxi) and pirogue (dugout canoe) to number varies depending on yearly taxonomic splits and lumps), reach the lake and the rails. Drifting in a pirogue way out in the Madagascar has more endemic birds than any other country on middle of the lake, the second largest water body in the country, I earth. watched a pair of their tiny bodies creeping about the dense lattice phragmites reed stems. The other success story of recent years, the Madagascar Pochard, was only ever recorded on Lac Alaotra, the largest lake in the country. Since it was declared extinct, it still hasn't been recorded here. However, two years ago, Lily Arison-Rene de Roland, Director of the Peregrine Fund, came across a pair of pochards dabbling blissfully on a very remote volcanic crater lake in the north of the country. That day will always belong to Lily; that euphoric moment when he re-discovered the Madagascar Pochard. To see these ducks in the wild takes almost as much effort as the rail. After two days in a taxi-brousse and a very painful seven-hour journey clinging to the back of a novice motorcyclist, I managed to find my way up to the lake. There, as if dropped into Jurassic Park, I emerged from the rainforest to look out on a perfectly circular lettuce-green lake fringed by three-cornered palms and freckled with all twenty five BIRD PROTECTION QUEBEC known wild Madagascar Pochards, dipping and diving as Tufted Ducks might do at my local lake back in Somerset. Any visiting birder to Mada should try and cover a cross-section of habitats, as they are all very different ecosystems, each offering its own unique suite of endemic species. Some excellent birding is to Madagascar Pochard (photo - Wikipedia under creative commons licence) be had in the western deciduous forests of Kirindy and Ankarafantsika. Both offer glimpses of one of my favourite western While humans may have plundered a few of Mada's more endemics, the White-breasted Mesite, which whirs and bobs around spectacular bird species to extinction, such as the aptly named the forest floor like a clockwork toy. hippo-sized Elephant Bird, there have been a number of recent triumphs among the ornithological community. Two examples are My favourite birding was, however, the recent re-discoveries of the Sakalava Rail and Madagascar south-west around Toliara. This alien Pochard, both thought extinct for over 20 years. landscape, dominated by ten- metre- high thorny Didiereaceae plants The Sakalava Rail has now been recorded in just three wetland sites (endemic to south-west Mada), most along the west coast. Reaching any of them is, to put it lightly, a bit closely resembles the saguaro cactus- of a challenge. I was prepared to embark on this challenge to see dominated deserts of Arizona. From the the rail, since it is a particularly odd-looking species. It looks rather Long-tailed Ground Roller, resembling a like a four-year-old has been given four tubes of acrylic paint and cross between a Rainbow Pitta and a asked to produce a bird. Its bright yellow bill is stuck on to an Roadrunner to the Subdesert Mesite, almost entirely black head and body. Complete with bright pink legs the only bird known to defend territories and a red-orange eye, it looks like a diminutive but simple toy. Lac in groups, and the newly discovered Kinkony is the place to head, though get in touch with BirdlLife Red-shouldered Vanga, the birds found International beforehand, who can help advise on the logistics of here are some of the most interesting in getting there. It took me three days by excruciatingly uncomfortable the world. The best part is that with the 2 Illustration by Toby Nowlan right guide none of them are difficult to track down, though history. Among his achievements on that trip was locating flying squirrels generally only possible either side of the midday period of in the trees above our campsite. It is safe to say that without him these blistering heat. amazing creatures would have gone unnoticed by the rest of us. Toby has led an expedition to Borneo to study the effects of logging on Madagascar, though now largely degraded by a booming amphibians and reptiles in lowland rainforest. He spent some time in population in poverty, still holds, in my opinion, the most 2010 in Baja California studying the Vaquita porpoise, the rarest marine interesting species on earth. While it's tough to cover everywhere animal on earth. He has worked on primate censuses on the island of in a few weeks, you can see many of the endemics and Biako in Equatorial Guinea. When I last met up with him in Montreal in experience a fascinatingly different range of habitats. Whatever September, he had just returned from Baffin Island where he had been you do see in Madagascar, the chances are you won't see tagging narwhals near Pond Inlet. And he has recently spent four months anything like it anywhere else. in the eastern rainforest of Madagascar. He is working on a book about his Madagascar experiences of which Editor’s Note: We followed a slightly different convention in this this article is a tantalizing foretaste. In article and capitalized all the bird names, regardless of whether his latest email to me (Nov. 14/11) in they are species, families or groups. Madagascar has a large answer to mine requesting confirmation number of endemic birds and most readers haven’t had a chance of details in this bio, he added: "I’m to become familiar with them. currently getting odd jobs in the wildlife documentary-making world; in fact I Toby Nowlan was a regular on BPQ Field Trips during the 2008-09 write this from a hide I built on a beach season when he was studying Zoology for a year at McGill University in Costa Rica. It's 2:10 am and I'm whilst working for his BSc in Biological Sciences from Edinburgh sitting next to a camera waiting for a BIRD PROTECTION QUEBEC University. He has since graduated with First Class Honours in Zoology jaguar to appear! The cameraman is and is now living near Bristol looking for full-time employment. I first met sleeping next to me." him on the BPQ Point Pelee trip in May 2009, where he impressed everyone with his all-round passion for anything to do with natural Biog and photo by Martin Bowman One thing we shall not be doing is spreading ourselves too thinly Bird-Brained Thoughts by trying to answer every call upon our resources that we receive – The President’s Message it is tempting to try to do everything but it simply is not possible and we must learn to say no sometimes. Our guiding principle is In early October, the Board of Directors of BPQ “do less, but do it better” and we are going to concentrate on the locked themselves away for an intensive weekend things that matter to us all, the things we are best placed to retreat during which we looked closely at what we achieve and which will best serve the birds. Our renewed purpose do, what we don’t do and how we can function will see us concentrating over the next few years on three main better as a conservation charity and a birding areas.