New Reserve Provides Habitat and Hope for a Desert-nesting Seabird

Abc

and its Chilean conservation partner Red de Observadores de Aves y Vida Silvestre de Chile (ROC) announced in January establishment of a community reserve that protects the largest-known breeding colony of the Markham’s Storm-Petrel. This follows years of effort by ROC and financial support from ABC since 2016. It is the first-ever reserve set up to protect a breeding site of this species.

“This is something we are very happy about, finalizing something that we have been working on for some years,” says Ivo Tejeda, the Executive Director of ROC.

The new community reserve, located in northern Chile, encompasses more than 1,600 acres that support a continued on p.8

20,000-pair Markham’s Storm-Petrel colony known as Pampa Chaca. Previously, the colony was on public land, where it was at risk from mining and energy projects, as well as military activities. Now, the government has transferred the land to ROC through a five-year concession to manage it specifically for conservation purposes.

Until recently, researchers knew very little about the breeding habits of this small, dark seabird with lead-gray wing patches, due to its unusual breeding habits. It turns out that, like several other storm-petrels seen off the coast of Peru and Chile, the species prefers to nest in the Atacama Desert, frequently under saltpeter deposits more than 10 miles inland, in a landscape so barren it resembles the surface of Mars.

Lost Birds, Found!

You can’t prevent a bird’s extinction if you don’t know where it is. The Search for Lost Birds, a partnership between Re:wild, ABC, eBird, and BirdLife International, aims to find lost bird species, and has been hitting its targets! Here are the most recent rediscoveries:

Madagascar: Dusky Tetraka first collected in 1946. Since this rediscovery, with ABC support, a project by Colombian NGO SELVA has documented the species consistently.

This small olive-colored and yellow-throated bird eluded ornithologists for 24 years (1999), until it was rediscovered by an expedition team, led by The Peregrine Fund’s Madagascar Program, in two different remote sites in tropical forests of northeastern Madagascar, in late December 2022 and in January this year. ABC’s Director of the Search for Lost Birds program John C. Mittermeier was part of the team that found this bird.

And a miss:

In March, a second expedition to seek the Sinu Parakeet, launched by the Sociedad Ornitológica de Córdoba and their partners in northwestern Colombia, did not turn up its target bird. However, the team did document 298 species, including several new to Córdoba Department, and the first Harpy Eagle sighting there in 50 years.

For more information, see: abcbirds.org/program/lost-birds

ABC is deeply grateful to Kathleen P. Burger and Glen Gerada, The Constable Foundation, The S. Gale Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation, and Cosmo Le Breton for their generous support of this program.

New Guinea: Black-naped Pheasant-Pigeon

News came out in November 2022 that a team of scientists and conservationists rediscovered the elusive Black-naped Pheasant-Pigeon, a large, ground-dwelling pigeon. Photos and video captured by the team provided the first documentation of the species since 1896. “After a month of searching, seeing those first photos of the pheasant-pigeon felt like finding a unicorn,” says ABC’s Mittermeier, a co-leader of the expedition. “It is the kind of moment you dream about your entire life as a conservationist and birdwatcher.”

Colombia: Santa Marta Sabrewing

This hummingbird was located in July 2022, just the second time it was documented since the species was