Recent News in the Venezuelan Birding World
The Recurve-billed Bushbird in the News
The Recurve-billed Bushbird (Clytoctantes alixii) has been in the popular birding news, as well professional ornithological discussions, after the press release in May of the "first photographs" of the bird. Since this topic continues to develop, we feel it appropriate to clarify some points raised in those discussions and to that end a resume of our experience in
Venezuela with this bird appears here.
Venezuelan Audubon Society (SCAV) reactivated
In late 2003 the Venezuelan Audubon Society (SCAV) was given a new lease of life. The Society has traditionally been Venezuela 's most active bird conservation organisation and national partner of BirdLife International. On 20 November 2003 , an Extraordinary General Assembly was held in Caracas in order to vote in a new Board of Directors. The Society had been relatively inactive for over a year and the new Board hopes to re-activate SCAV by early 2004. Initially, a series of field outings are proposed and other projects include a series of bird checklists and courses for beginning birders.
SCAV will still continue to arrange bird trips for independent birders and groups through the well-established travel agent, Tur -V Special Tours - a proportion of profits will directly benefit the society. The Venezuelan Audubon Society can be contacted by email at audubon@cantv.net or by telephone on +58-212-9922812 and 9923268.
The Second Venezuelan Important Bird Areas ( IBAs ) Workshop was carried out in mid 2003 with support from BirdLife International and Conservation International. The first workshop, entitled First Workshop on the Identification of Venezuelan Important Bird Areas had taken place in November 2000. This second workshop aimed to confirm the sites proposed in November 2000 and produce preliminary lists of their avifauna.
According to Miguel Lentino, Venezuelan Audubon Society's IBA Project Director, the Venezuelan IBA Programme is focussing on existing national parks and other protected areas as IBAs . Most of Venezuela 's endemic or restricted range species occur within at least one protected area, with only three species - Barred Tinamou Crypturellus casiquiare , Orinoco Softtail Thripophaga cherriei and Táchira Emerald Amazilia distans - found entirely outside protected areas. The proposed IBAs cover most of Venezuela 's biomes with 18 in the Guayana Region, 16 in coastal systems, 9 in the Andean Cordillera, 11 in the Central Coastal Cordillera, 3 in the Caripe-Paria Highlands, 11 in the llanos and Orinoco Delta and 5 in the Maracaibo basin.
The 7th annual Venezuelan Audubon Society Avethón took place on 26 October 2003 as part of BirdLIfe International's World Bird Festival . Twenty-two people took part and the 5 teams spent the morning birding at sites around Caracas . The winning team racked up a total of 89 species.
The 1st Training Course for Wildlife Guides was carried out in the Rancho Grande Biological Station in Henri Pittier National Park from 3 to 6 November 2003 . The course was sponsored by Fundacite Aragua , the Rancho Grande Biological Station, the Museum of the Institute for Agricultural Zoology of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (MIZA-UCV) and the Venezuelan Parks Institute ( Inparques ). The emphasis of this course was on promoting birdwatching as an activity within Henri Pittier National Park and its surroundings. Some 30 local participants attended courses given by Carlos Verea of the UCV and Chris Sharpe of Provita.
The Paria Peninsula, home to five endemic species, at least 13 endemic subspecies and four globally threatened species, is in further trouble. On one hand, by mid-2003 the new road connecting Güiria, at the base of the Peninsula , to Macuro, at its tip, was complete and partially surfaced. The road is expected to increase shifting cultivation of cash crops and therefore increase the already worrying rate of deforestation.
At the same time the Marsical Sucre (formerly Cristóbal Colón) LNG project was reactivated through a framework agreement signed on 9 June 2003 . The $2.7 billion project is a partnership between PDV Gas (60% ownership), Shell (30%), Mitsubishi (8%) and other Venezuelan organizations (2%). Marsical Sucre is projected to produce 4.7 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year, mostly for export to the USA . Shell say the project emphasises the extraction of 10 trillion cubic feet of gas resources in the Norte de Paria fields in the Caribbean north of the Peninsula which will be piped over the mountains to a cryogenics plant on its south shore. Conservationists are concerned that the project may try to pass the pipeline through the already highly threatened Paria Peninsula National Park . So far oil companies have not disclosed their plans, nor has an EIA been carried out. The project is scheduled to begin production in 2007.
Blue Seedeaters Amaurospiza ( Emberizidae ) are rare, little-known finches which occur locally in southern Mexico , Central and South America , almost always in association with bamboo. Until 2003, two species had been described: Blue Seedeater A. concolor from southern Mexico to western Ecuador and Blackish-blue Seedeater A. moesta from south-eastern Brazil . A new species, the Carrizal Blue-black Seedeater , A. carrizalensis , has recently been described from south-eastern Venezuela ( Lentino & Restall 2003). The species is named after the small islet where it was discovered which is also the local name for the bamboo which forms its habitat .
During 2001, researchers Miguel Lentino and Robin Restall from the Phelps Ornithological Collection took part in a biological survey along the Río Caroní , north and downstream of the Guri Dam, part of the world's largest hydroelectric project. One of the expeditions was to Isla Carrizal at 07°54'N, 63°04'W, a large uninhabited island thickly covered with groves of spiny Guadua latifolia (" carrizal ") and Ripidocladus sp. bamboos and semi-deciduous forest. On two occasions, three specimens (two males and a female) of an unknown blue seedeater ( Amaurospiza ) were collected. These were the first records for an Amaurospiza for north-eastern South America .
Subsequent examination showed the specimens to constitute a hitherto undescribed species which is characterised by a larger bill compared than other Amaurospiza and small differences in plumage. Like other Amaurospiza the male is blue-grey, while the female is warm brownish-yellow. The male shows indigo-blue shoulders.
The discovery came as a surprise to the researchers, because the Río Caroní has been relatively well surveyed and additionally no other Amaurospiza species had been recorded from Venezuela , nor were they expected. The finch had eluded discovery because of its impenetrable spiny bamboo habitat and its presence on an uninhabited islet.
The new seedeater came to light because the Venezuelan electricity company, EDELCA, had commissioned a study of local wildlife before commencing work on the new Caruache Dam across the Río Caroní . Isla Carrizal was already scheduled for deforestation for development of the Dam. The island has now been cleared, but researchers believe that the species is likely to be found at other sites and hope that funding will be found for new surveys where its bamboo habitat occurs.
Lentino , M. and R. Restall . 2003. A new species of Amaurospiza Blue Seedeater from Venezuela . Auk 120 (3): 600-606.
http://www.birdlife.net/news/news/2003/10/new_seedeater.html