Research
Some of my ongoing projects are described below.
Cotingas and Manakins I am part of a four-man team working on a monograph of the Cotingidae and Pipridae. The accent will be on information about these birds of most interest to the field birder. As well as thoroughly reviewing the literature, we are also conducting field and museum work throughout Latin America on these wonderful birds. If you have unpublished field data that you would be willing to see included in the book (properly credited, of course), I would love to hear from you. E-mail me at GMKirwan@aol.com Leucistic Pompadour Cotinga Xipholena punicea, held in RMNH, Leiden (© Guy M. Kirwan)
Photographing the birds of the Americas
I am currently assisting Hadoram Shirihai in his project with Hans Jornvall on the birds of the world, by coordinating, organising and leading photographic expeditions throughout the New World tropics. To date we have made two photographic trips to Brazil, and single long trips to Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico and the Greater Antilles. A trip report from our visit to northern Peru in mid September to mid November 2008 is posted here, and our next trip is to northern South America starting in September 2009. Taxonomy of Socotran birds Following my fieldwork on the island of Socotra as part of the OSME South Expedition in 1993, I am working on a re-evaluation of the taxonomy of the archipelago’s landbird taxa. Socotra is an ancient island group that is politically part of Yemen, avifaunally Afrotropical, and floristically best regarded as simply too unique to categorise easily. To date, four papers in the series have appeared (see Papers) and several others are in various stages of planning. Interest in the avifauna of Socotra has soared in recent years, following decades of more or less complete neglect, and bird tours, both organised and private, have commenced as a result. A vast amount of information on the breeding birds has been garnered, including confirmation that Jouanin’s Petrel Bulweria fallax breeds on cliffs on the main island. Many vagrants have been added to the archipelago’s list too, mainly by the team working under Richard Porter, but also by tourists visiting the island on short trips; your records are very valuable. Socotra is highly significant for bird and other wildlife conservation (see http://socotraisland.org/ and http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2008/02/socotra.html, and two books devoted to its wildlife and natural resources have appeared recently (for details, see http://www.nhbs.com/title.php?tefno=147370 and http://www.nhbs.com/title.php?tefno=131634. Two of Socotra’s endemic birds: on the left male specimens of Abd Al Kuri Sparrow Passer hemileucus; and on the right males of Socotra Sparrow Passer insularis (© Guy Kirwan; Alec Forbes-Watson specimens in the Smithsonian Institution)
Like a challenge? Know where to find the specialty birds of your region? Contact us.
Search for the enigmatic Hooded Seedeater Sporophila melanops
Few birds deserve that well-worn adjective ‘enigmatic’ as much as this one. Hooded Seedeater Sporophila melanops is completely unknown in life. The holotype (and only specimen) was collected by Johann Natterer in October 1823, near Registro do Araguaia, in Goiás, central Brazil, and, because of the lack of subsequent encounters with the species, some commentators have questioned the species’ validity. S. H. M. Butchart (pers. comm. August 2008) is unaware of anyone having searched the type locality for any length of time. S. melanops is currently listed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct) and of the species so listed has been ‘lost’ the longest. As such, searches for this species and to confirm or deny its taxonomic status must be of the highest priority. It has been impossible to design conservation action for S. melanops because there are no data as to whether it is a migrant, or resident in the type locality region. Provided that melanops is not a hybrid, or merely a variant of Yellow-bellied Seedeater S. nigricollis, and given that at least some of the other rare seedeaters that winter as far north as central Brazil breed in the comparatively well-covered Mesopotamian grasslands of NE Argentina, it seems possible that melanops, if it survives, might be at most a relatively short-distance migrant, like Black-and-tawny Seedeater S. nigrorufa. Given the complete lack of data for S. melanops, any concrete information must be of value. Finding it remains the challenge for Brazilian field workers, now that virtually every one of the other ‘lost’ birds of Brazil has been rediscovered.
Together with two friends I made an initial, unsuccessful, search for the bird for c.10 days in late December 2008, with future trips to the area at different times of year planned for the near future. Many other interesting data on the avifauna of the Araguaia Valley were collected during the course of the fieldwork, some of which will be prepared for publication in due course, whilst contacts with local ornithologists also interested in the fate of S. melanops were cemented. A private report on the first phase of the work will be circulated to interested parties in shortly.
