Introducing the Worcester's Buttonquail...(found only in the Philippines)



...the first known photograph anywhere of this rare endemic, shot by Arnel Telesforo during our shoot for the documentary, Bye-Bye Birdie. (We also have video of it.)

The British birder, and our frequent house guest, Desmond Allen was watching a DVD of our recent documentary, Bye-Bye Birdie, when he saw a still image of a rare bird in the credits that lasted less than a second. He went back and did a screen shot, as an intense gaze creased his face. "I'm shocked," he said without removing his eyes from the bird, shot by one of our birder-companions, Arnel Telesforo. "I don't know of any other photos of this. No bird watchers have ever given convincing reports that they have seen it at all... This is an exciting discovery."

Another bird expert in the Philippines, Arne Jensen, confirmed that it was a Worcester's Buttonquail. The bird is listed on the IUCN Red list (1996) as "Data Deficient."

A member of the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, Telesforo had shot the bird (only with his camera of course) moments after it was trapped in Dalton Pass, a cold and wind-swept bird passageway in Nueva Vizcaya in northern Luzon, where the Cordillera range meets the Sierra Madre mountains. We were there to document the traditional practice of akik, catching wild birds with nets by first attracting them with bright lights on moonless nights.

The only previous way we knew it existed was through an illustration in A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines by Robert Kennedy, et al, the Philippine birder's bible. That drawing was based on the skins of specimens brought back dead from the wild more than a century ago. The authoritative image bank of the Oriental Bird Club does not contain a single image of the Worcester's Buttonquail, the only buttonquail species in the data base not to have a photograph. That gap should soon be filled.

In the glare of a flashlight, we had misidentified this endemic bird as the less rare Small Buttonquail, before it was placed by its captors in a sack along with several of the common Blue-breasted Quail, aka pugo.

With the photograph and the promise of more sightings in the wild, "we can see the living bill, the eye color, the feathers, rather than just the mushed-up museum skin," says Allen, who has been birdwatching for fifty years, fifteen in the Philippines, and has an extensive collection of bird calls on his ipod in addition to his beloved salsa music.

In the video, he also spotted the Oriental (or Manchurian) Bush Warbler, another rare bird which Desmond has not seen in the Philippines. We had also misidentified it in our documentary as a Clamorous Reed Warbler.

The Oriental Bush Warbler was released, saved by its unappealing taste.

Alas, the Worcester's Buttonquail is considered tasty in those parts. After its first recorded sighting in the wild, it was sold the next day, along with its sackmates, for ten pesos each, bought by a man for an ailing elderly relative who requested a meal of wild bird meat to make her stronger.

The sightings of these rare birds in Dalton Pass may draw new attention to this region from hard-core birders from around the world. That may bring new pressure on authorities to enforce environmental laws that have long made the trapping and trading of wild life such as these birds illegal. When we interviewed the DENR provincial officer for Nueva Vizcaya, Bobby Apigo, he told us that the practice of akik had been stopped by his men. But we witnessed trappers, some in their young teens, walking with their lanterns and nets right past the DENR and agriculture checkpoints.

In just a few hours over two days, we saw two "star birds," an indication Desmond says of what more could be out there in a part of Luzon that has been heavily logged. Even in tiny patches of grass and forest, Philippine biodiversity is alive and flying.