by Ashley Banwell - ashleybanwellsbirding.com
Aegotheles affinis terborgi is
only known from a single specimen taken at 1100 meters from the Karimui Basin
in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea on 16th August 1964. This
individual was presented to Jared M. Diamond by a native who said he had caught
it by hand while it was sleeping on a branch during the day. JMD named this
distinctive race after Dr John Terborgh was had accompanied him on a 1964
collecting trip to Karimui. Since its discovery it had been place under Barred
Owlet-nightjar A bennettii based upon its close similarity to the two mainland
races of A bennettii but it was distinct from these races in its much larger
size, wing length being 154mm compared with A bennetti bennettii which has a
121-128 wing, as well as its much darker blacker upper parts. Handbook of the
Birds of the World Alive currently places it under Allied Owlet-nightjar A
affinis and the recent Birds of New Guinea - Distribution, Taxonomy and
Systematics places it under Barred A bennettii.
The other population of Allied is
present in the Arfak Mountains of the Bird's head Peninsular in West Papua at
the elevation of 80-1500m which is some 1400 kms to the west. Most authors
agree that it is a good possibility that it may well be a full species but
further observations and recordings of its vocalisations would be required to
increase the knowledge of this taxon.
Having a keen interest on
nocturnal birding and combined with my passion for Papuan birding I had been
aware that there may well be something of great interest hiding on the old
volcano at Karimui. I had been making enquiries about visiting the region for a
couple of years and finally in July 2016 I was back in Port Morseby with
Karimui next up on my agenda. Despite Air Niugini's best efforts to cancel my
plans and the countries Prime Minister facing a vote of no confidence we
eventually made it into Goroka via Lae, not as we planned but we were ready for
our MAFF charter flight into Karimui. So Markus Lagerqvist, Roger McNeill,
Daniel Wakra and myself had four nights in Karimui to find an owlet-nightjar
without any recordings or information on where to look it suddenly seemed a
tall order.
No comments:
Post a Comment