The cryptid connection

This is a special, supplemental volume of that mother lode of all encyclopedias, the multi-volume “Handbook of the Birds of the World” (HBW). Most of it contains an index to the 16 official volumes, but a few additional features have also been thrown in. An extended article deals with BirdLife International, a partnership of bird conservation organizations which co-sponsors the HBW. Danish professor Jon Fjeldså has written extensive articles on bird classification and the search for new species. 15 species from the Amazonas are described for the first time, including an entirely new species of corvid, the Campina Jay, discovered in Brazil in 2002. There is also a photo section, showing more or less stunning color photos of everything from the cassowary to small passerines.

The most interesting part of this 17th HBW volume deal with new bird species not included in the official volumes. Most of the “new” species are previously known populations which for various reasons weren't recognized as species in their own right until recently. The most sensational is the Gunnison Grouse, which lives and breeds in Utah and Colorado, in full view of bird-watchers and scientists (and, I suppose, Mormons). It was confused with the somewhat larger Greater Sage-Grouse until the 1990's, when a thoroughgoing survey revealed it to be a distinct species, the first new species of bird described in the United States since the 19th century. Another sensational find is the New Zealand Storm-Petrel, believed to be extinct and not recorded since 1850, until it showed up in creepy Fortean fashion in 2003. These days, the petrel even breeds on an island 50 km outside Auckland! Some species are genuinely new discoveries, such as the Nechisar Nightjar, known from a single wing found on a road in southern Ethiopia.

Fjeldså also mentions a number of entertaining hoaxes. One of them is over a century old. In 1894, Polish explorer Kalinowski supposedly caught and killed an unknown species of tinamou at “Licamachay” in southern Peru, a place not found on any maps. His specimen was subsequently lost during World War II. Recently, the dead bird surfaced again, and a peek into the explorer's private notebooks showed that he wasn't anywhere near the supposed place of discovery, “Kalinowski's Tinamou” being a perfectly regular tinamou of a previously recognized species. A cruder hoax was perpetrated in New Zealand in 2009, when a pink hawk created quite a stir among the local bird-watchers. It turned out to be a hawk painted pink by a private citizen, the perpetrator facing criminal charges for mistreating animals (apparently, fooling bird-watchers is legal). Fjeldså is surprisingly positive to “crypto-zoological” reports about small, unknown moas in New Zealand, observed in 1989, 1990 and 1993. He doesn't believe in Thunderbirds, though. Fjeldså then mentions Peter Hocking, a Peruvian-American who straddles the thin red line between crypto-zoology and official science, also being a Christian missionary. Hocking has apparently compiled a whole list of crypto-birds from Peru, but these are “normal” birds, such as parakeets. He also believes there are tigers native to South America…

Fjeldså's articles on bird systematics was also interesting. People who love to see scientists confused and confounded might find it comic. DNA tests have shown that traditional bird taxonomy (the system used in the official 16 volumes of HBW) is mostly wrong. Thus, it turns out that grebes and flamingoes are closely related (I have a miniature flamingo in my duck pond!). So are waterfowl (Anseriformes) and landfowl (Galliformes). Ducks and chicken are closely related? Figures. Walt Disney and Old MacDonald would love it. A strange-looking small bird in Colombia, the Broad-Billed Sapayoa, turned out to be the only “Old World suboscine” found in the New World, presumably a relict population 50 million years old. Another piece of good news is that the Tropicbird is no longer an aberrant cousin to the pelicans. Interestingly, the DNA testing showed that some counter-intuitive relations actually are genuine. Swifts and hummingbirds really are related, and so are tinamous (which look like hens) and ostriches. And yes, sandgrouse are related to doves, not to shorebirds. Glad to have that sorted out. And now some bad news: it turns out that at least five Asian subspecies of the Common Blackbird (Turdus merula) aren't really common blackbirds at all, but belong to two different and distinct species! Hmmm…did they use contaminated samples, or what?

As another reviewer pointed out, most of this volume is really an index, but since the other highlights were a great fun to skim, I will nevertheless give “HBW: New Species and Global Index” four stars. Now, please go out there and catch me a miniature moa!