After the Storm: Can This Rediscovered Bird Recover?

 21 Jun 2019

Amongst the destruction and tragedy on Grand Bahama caused by Hurricane Matthew, there is an untold story of a rediscovered, but very threatened bird with a potential population of just two.

How low can a bird species’ population drop and still be saved from extinction? It’s an interesting theoretical question, and it became more than an academic one for scientists and conservationists last summer, when the Bahama Nuthatch Sitta insularis, a bird feared extinct, was rediscovered.

Prior to the rediscovery, the nuthatch had not  been seen since Hurricane Matthew ripped through Grand Bahama – the island on which the bird is endemic – in June of 2016. Two years on from the carnage, two students from the University of East Anglia, working in conjunction with BirdLife International and the Bahamas National Trust (BirdLife Partner) went on an expedition to catch sight of the bird.

“We had been scouring the forest for about six weeks, and had almost lost hope,” says Matthew Gardner of the rediscovery. “At that point we’d walked about 400 kilometres. Then, I suddenly heard its distinctive call and saw the unmistakable shape of a nuthatch descending towards me. I shouted with joy, I was ecstatic!”

The world was ecstatic along with him. The news made international headlines, and the ornithological world celebrated the rediscovery of the Bahama Nuthatch. But are the celebrations warranted? Gardner and his partner, David Pereira, saw the Bahama Nuthatch six times throughout their three-month survey, but they never saw two birds together, leading them to believe there may only be one individual left. A team of Bahamian students, led by Zeko McKenzie of Loma Linda University, independently recorded five sighting of the nuthatch in the same forest, and believe they may have seen two birds together. With only one or two Bahama Nuthatches left though, is it possible for the bird to make a comeback?

Read on

Bird feared extinct rediscovered in the Bahamas

August 23, 2018, University of East Anglia

One of the rarest birds in the western hemisphere, the Bahama Nuthatch, has been rediscovered by research teams searching the island of Grand Bahama.

The finding is particularly significant because the species had been feared extinct following the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, and had not been found in subsequent searches.

But it is feared that there could only be two left—placing the species on the verge of extinction and certainly among the world's most critically endangered birds.

The Bahama Nuthatch is an endangered species, only known from a small area of native pine forest on Grand Bahama Island, which lies approximately 100 miles off Palm Beach, Florida.

University of East Anglia masters students Matthew Gardner and David Pereira set out on a three-month expedition to find this and other endemic Caribbean pine forest bird species.

They made their way through dense forest with thick 'poisonwood' understorey—the layer of vegetation growing beneath the main forest canopy—in what is thought to be one of the most exhaustive searches of the island.

They worked in partnership with Nigel Collar and David Wege from Birdlife International and the Bahamas National Trust, the organisation which works to protect the habitats and species of The Bahama Islands.

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