Damar Flycatcher reappears after 103 years<\/p>\n
Birdlife International-IP, Bogor, West Java,<\/p>\n
In the Banda Sea, in the Southwest Maluku Province -- 400
\nkilometers south of Ambon and 1800 kilometers east of Jakarta,
\nthe tiny 198 square kilometers Damar island harbors Damar
\nFlycatcher, one of Indonesia's 381 endemic birds.<\/p>\n
The Damar Flycatcher Ficedula henrici is found nowhere else in
\nthe world -- another example of Indonesia's remarkable
\nmegadiversity. It was first discovered and collected in 1898 by
\nHeinrich Kuhn, a museum specimen collector, but had not been seen
\nsince.<\/p>\n
The Damar Flycatcher is a small 12-cm dark blue flycatcher
\nwith a white-eyebrow and small white chest patch. The species
\nname honors Heinrich.<\/p>\n
At that time, for three months, Heinrich and his team of
\nJavanese assistants collected bird specimens for the British
\nMuseum, their job to characterize the bird species composition of
\nsome of the most remote islands of Indonesia. In particular, they
\nsought new species previously unknown to science.<\/p>\n
Only 49 species were collected, perhaps as avifaunal richness
\nis tightly linked with island size, enough for such a small
\nisland. Nine flycatcher specimens were collected in 1898,
\npresumably from forest, because the island at this time was
\ndescribed as "almost entirely covered in dense forest".<\/p>\n
Damar Island is small. It would be swallowed by urban sprawl
\nif hypothetically placed atop Jakarta city. Local people go about
\ntheir business -- growing coconuts, cloves and agricultural
\ncrops, keeping chickens, pigs and goats -- more or less as they
\nhave done for centuries.<\/p>\n
The highly limited global range on an explosive volcanic
\nisland, coupled with a total lack of information on the status of
\nthe island's forests, lead BirdLife International to class this
\nspecies status as vulnerable in their recently published Asian
\nRed Data Book of Threatened Birds.<\/p>\n
Following in the rather faded footsteps of Heinrich,
\nBirdLife International-Indonesia Programme and the PHKA undertook
\na survey of the island to rediscover the Damar Flycatcher
\nin August and September 2001 to determine its population status
\nand the level of threat to habitats on the island.<\/p>\n
After more than two weeks traveling from Java, Colin Trainor
\nof BirdLife International and Clemens Bulurdity, a Forest
\nProtection and Nature Conservation (PHKA) officer from Saumlaki
\non the Tanimbar Islands rediscovered the Damar Flycatcher in
\ntropical semi-evergreen forest near the villages of Wulur, Kumur
\nand Batumerah -- roughly in the same localities as specimens
\ncollected way back in 1898.<\/p>\n
Clemens successfully captured two males and a female with mist
\nnets, using the skills he had developed during previous BirdLife
\nsurveys on the Tanimbar Islands.<\/p>\n
The Damar Flycatcher was photographed for the first time ever,
\nmeasured, then released.<\/p>\n
Its preferred habitat is the rattan dominated forest
\nunderstorey where it searches for insects on tree trunks, from
\nleaf litter, rocks and shrubs. Occasionally it enters forest-
\nringed vegetable garden plots where it searches for grubs on
\nchili bushes and bananas that are surrounded in primary forest.<\/p>\n
With more than 70 percent of the island still covered in
\nforest and the relatively low threat to forest from agricultural
\nclearing and small-scale logging, the Damar Flycatcher is in no
\nimmediate danger of becoming extinct.<\/p>\n
Given its small size and rather weak and ordinary song, it is
\nof little interest to the local people either as a food item or
\nas a tradable commodity. Some old men know it as Lwoto Lwoto, but
\nthe younger men class it as just another small forest bird,
\nlittle different from a Fantail (Rhipidura sp).<\/p>\n
The survey also added 13 more birds to Damar's short list,
\nwith one the barred-necked cuckoo-dove Macropygia magna, being a
\nglobally restricted-range species (a high total of 15 such
\nspecies known from the island).<\/p>\n
The first updated information from Damar (in 103 years) on
\nother interesting species such as the blue-streaked Lory Eos
\nreticulata, olive-headed Lorikeet Trichoglossus euteles,
\ncinnamon-banded Kingfisher Halcyon australasia and dark-backed
\nbronze-cuckoo Chrysococcyx rufomerus was also collected during
\nsystematic transect surveys.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/damar-flycatcher-reappears-after-103-years-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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